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ENGINEERING
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Understanding Drama
LANGUAGE
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Subject: UNDERSTANDING DRAMA
Credits: 4
SYLLABUS
One-act Plays
Introduction to One-Act Plays, The Bishop's Candlesticks, Refund, The Monkey's Paw
Macbeth
Background Study to the Play & Discussion, Characterisation & Techniques
A Doll's House: A Study Guide
Introduction to Drama, Themes and Characterisation, Critical Analysis: Acts and Dramatic Techniques,
Arms and The Man: A study Guide
Ghashiram Kotwal : A Study Guide
Dramatic Techniques, Themes and Characterisation, Background and Plot, Ghashiram Kotwal
Suggested Readings:
1. Indian Drama in English : Chakraborty Kaustav
2. The Cambridge Companion To George Bernard Shaw: Christopher Innes
3. Dramatic Techniques: George Pierce baker
CONTENTS
Chapter-1: Origin Of Drama
Chapter-2: The Elements Of Drama
Chapter-3: Asian Drama
Chapter-4: Forms Of Drama
Chapter-5: Dramatic Structure
Chapter-6: Comedy (Drama)
Chapter-7: Play (Theatre)
Chapter-8: Theories Of Theatre
Chapter-9: Theater Structure
Chapter-10: Shakespeare's Plays
Chapter-11: American Drama
Chapter-12: Othello – William Shakespear
Chapter-1
Origin of Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek
word meaning "action" (Classical Greek: drama), which is derived from the verb meaning "to
do" or "to act‖. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an
audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The
structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this
collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by
Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BC) by Sophocles are
among the masterpieces of the art of drama. A modern example is Long Day's Journey into Night
by Eugene O‘Neill (1956).
The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy
and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene. Thalia was
the Muse of comedy (the laughing face), while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy (the
weeping face). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been
contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BC)—the
earliest work of dramatic theory.
The use of "drama" in the narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the 19th
century. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example,
Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov's Ivanov (1887). It is this narrow sense that the film
and television industry and film studies adopted to describe "drama" as a genre within their
respective media. "Radio drama" has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a live
performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow and serious end of the
dramatic output of radio.
Drama is often combined with music and dance: the drama in opera is generally sung
throughout; musicals generally include both spoken dialogue and songs; and some forms of
drama have incidental music or musical accompaniment underscoring the dialogue (melodrama
and Japanese Nō, for example). In certain periods of history (the ancient Roman and modern
Romantic) some dramas have been written to be read rather than performed. In improvisation,
the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script
spontaneously before an audience.
Classical Greek drama
Western drama originates in classical Greece. The theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens
produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain
obscure, though by the 5th century BC they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of
festivities celebrating the god Dionysus. Historians know the names of many ancient Greek
dramatists, not least Thespis, who is credited with the innovation of an actor ("hypokrites") who
speaks (rather than sings) and impersonates a character (rather than speaking in his own person),
while interacting with the chorus and its leader ("coryphaeus"), who were a traditional part of the
performance of non-dramatic poetry (dithyrambic, lyric and epic).
Only a small fraction of the work of five dramatists, however, has survived to this day: we have a
small number of complete texts by the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the
comic writers Aristophanes and, from the late 4th century, Menander. Aeschylus' historical
tragedy The Persians is the oldest surviving drama, although when it won first prize at the City
Dionysia competition in 472 BC, he had been writing plays for more than 25 years. The
competition ("agon") for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records
("didaskaliai") begin from 501 BC, when the satyr play was introduced. Tragic dramatists were
required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily
connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play
(though exceptions were made, as with Euripides' Alcestis in 438 BC). Comedy was officially
recognised with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BC.
Five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia (though during the Peloponnesian War this
may have been reduced to three), each offering a single comedy. Ancient Greek comedy is
traditionally divided between "old comedy" (5th century BC), "middle comedy" (4th century
BC) and "new comedy" (late 4th century to 2nd BC).
Classical Roman drama
Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek territories
between 270–240 BC, Rome encountered Greek drama. From the later years of the republic and
by means of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD), theatre spread west across Europe, around the
Mediterranean and reached England; Roman theatre was more varied, extensive and
sophisticated than that of any culture before it.
While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BC
marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. From the beginning of the empire, however,
interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments.
The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius
Andronicus wrote from 240 BC. Five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. No
plays from either writer have survived. While both dramatists composed in both genres,
Andronicus was most appreciated for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their
successors tended to specialise in one or the other, which led to a separation of the subsequent
development of each type of drama.
By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of
writers (collegium poetarum) had been formed. The Roman comedies that have survived are all
fabula palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two dramatists: Titus Maccius
Plautus (Plautus) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence). In re-working the Greek originals, the
Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama into episodes and
introduced musical accompaniment to its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the
comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence). The action of all scenes is set in the
exterior location of a street and its complications often follow from eavesdropping.
Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205 and 184 BC and twenty of his comedies
survive, of which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his dialogue and his
use of a variety of poetic meters. All of the six comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and
160 BC have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek
originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a sophisticated presentation of
contrasting human behavior. No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in
its day; historians know of three early tragedians—Quintus Ennius, Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius
Accius.
From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives—one is an unknown author,
while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all of which
are fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his Phaedra, for example, was
based on Euripides' Hippolytus. Historians do not know who wrote the only extant example of
the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects), Octavia, but in former times it was
mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as a character in the tragedy.
Medieval
In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged from
religious enactments of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented on the porch of the cathedrals
or by strolling players on feast days. Miracle and mystery plays, along with moralities and
interludes, later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was seen on the
Elizabethan stages.
Elizabethan and Jacobean
One of the great flowerings of drama in England occurred in the 16th and 17th centuries. Many
of these plays were written in verse, particularly iambic pentameter. In addition to Shakespeare,
such authors as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, and Ben Jonson were prominent
playwrights during this period. As in the medieval period, historical plays celebrated the lives of
past kings, enhancing the image of the Tudor monarchy. Authors of this period drew some of
their storylines from Greek mythology and Roman mythology or from the plays of eminent
Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.
Modern and postmodern
The pivotal and innovative contributions of the 19th-century Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen
and the 20th-century German theatre practitioner Bertolt Brecht dominate modern drama; each
inspired a tradition of imitators, which include many of the greatest playwrights of the modern
era. The works of both playwrights are, in their different ways, both modernist and realist,
incorporating formal experimentation, meta-theatricality, and social critique. In terms of the
traditional theoretical discourse of genre, Ibsen's work has been described as the culmination of
"liberal tragedy", while Brecht's has been aligned with an historicised comedy.
Other important playwrights of the modern era include Antonin Artaud, August Strindberg,
Anton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind, Maurice Maeterlinck, Federico García Lorca, Eugene O'Neill,
Luigi Pirandello, George Bernard Shaw, Ernst Toller, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Arthur Miller,
Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Friedrich
Dürrenmatt, Dario Fo, Heiner Müller, and Caryl Churchill.
Chapter-2
The Elements of Drama
A toolbox for diagnosing problems with performance, the elements of drama provide a useful
checklist for students and teachers working on student performance. As the elements are the
building blocks of a performance, teachers will find it invaluable to focus on each of them when
diagnosing problems with a performance. When students become skilled and confident with the
use of the elements of drama, the facilitator has a ready reference point to work from. As
students continue working with the elements, they will begin to refer to them in their reflection
and the development of their own performance work. In a successful performance the focus will
be clear, tension will be thoughtfully manipulated and managed. This will contribute to the
successful creation of an appropriate atmosphere or mood. Actors, props and sets will be
organized in the space in a way that is aesthetically appropriate and creates meaning. Roles will
be sustained in a convincing and appropriate way. Devices like contrast and symbol are also
central to the development of a performance.
The following exercises may assist students to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their
piece by using and understanding the elements of drama in an active way. By using the elements,
students can develop the skills needed in a successful performance.
FOCUS
―The frame that directs attention to what is most significant and intensifies the dramatic
meaning‖. A strong performance piece will have a clear intent which influences the performers‘
motivation and channels the attention of the audience. In other words the piece has a clear focus
which determines the focus of the character and actor and directs the focus of the audience.
There are 4 closely related areas of focus:
1. The focus of the scene
2. The focus of the audience
3. The focus of the character
4. The focus of the actor.
To simply demonstrate the concept of focus and tension, the class observes three miniperformances, then discusses and compares them.
(a) Two people walking around the acting space.
(b) Two people searching in the acting space for a pen.
(c) Two people searching for a bomb in the acting space, time limit 20 seconds, defuse by count
of 4.
The second performance has a focus; the third has heightened tension. Activities to develop the
focus of the actor/student
(a) The whole group move in the working space.
An object thrown onto the floor alternatively repels then attracts them, providing a whole-group
focus.
(b) The whole group point to a corner above their heads and move towards it purposefully.
(c) ―Nectar of the gods‖ or ―dungeons‖.
This creeping up game may be played as a tribe retrieving the nectar of life or prisoners escaping
the dungeon. One person stands at one end of the room with the ―key‖ or the ―nectar‖ on the
floor at feet. When he or she turns his or her back the rest of the group creep up to get the ―key‖
or ―nectar‖. Anyone seen moving must return to the start. The group use tactics to pass the object
back to the start which sets them free or empowers the tribe. Variations of this sort of game
requiring a freeze help to develop focus.
(d) Group counting 1-21.
Anyone may call out a number at any time in an attempt to reach 21 without an overlap of
voices.
(e) Group clap.
The aim is to clap as a group simultaneously without a signal. Anyone may initiate the move.
(f) ―Edelweiss claps.‖
Group stand in a circle with right hand facing up at right side and left hand facing down at left
side. A clap is passed around the circle from hand to hand.
(g) ―Ray gun‖.
An initial ray gunner is nominated. When the person touches another, he/she is hit by the ray
gun. The ray gunner points to a person and moves to touch. The victim must call someone else‘s
name before being touched to save his/her life. The named person becomes the new ray gunner
TENSION
―The force that engages the performers and audience in the dramatic action‖. Every performance
contains the element of tension. In the first activity on focus, where actors wandered in the space,
the tension was very low. The second performance, searching for a pen, raised the tension
slightly and the third, searching for a bomb, heightened the tension.
To demonstrate and define tension:
(a) String tension
Two people play a scene. A string is stretched across the front of the space. When it is tight they
play the
scene with high tension; when it is loose they play with low tension. e.g. a doctor presents results
of test
student in principal‘s office opening a birthday present grocery shopping with kids.
(b) Jewel thief and security guard (introduces concept of dramatic tension) Group form
protective circle around two blindfolded performers. One is a thief searching for jewels; the other
is the security guard attempting to capture him.
SPACE
―The personal and general space used by the actors. It focuses on the meaning of the size and
shape of distances between actor and actor, actor and objects (props and sets) and actor and
audience.‖ To demonstrate and define the element:
(a) Build some statues of frozen moments e.g. ―Don‘t speak to your mother like that!‖ Discuss:
―What is the focus of this scene?‖, ―How do we know?‖ Remove facial expression and gestures.
(b) Discuss: ―How does the space between the people and the objects on the stage convey
meaning?‖
Demonstrate the power of the space to carry meaning by moving people around without altering
their gestures or expression. In small groups build a statue which indicates status and
relationships through the use of ―space‖, e.g. a family, a court, a gang, an argument, a peace
treaty.
MOOD
―The atmosphere created. Mood concentrates the dramatic action and moves the audience in
emotionally appropriate directions.‖ To demonstrate and define mood:
(a) Form small groups. Listen to an allocated piece of music. Select some scarves from the props
box which reflect the mood, atmosphere or feelings created by the music.
(b) Develop 3 freeze frame statues which capture this mood. Find a way to move from one freeze
frame to the next, using the scarves to emphasize the mood. Punctuate the movement by
occasionally calling out a word which reflects the mood that you are working on
CONTRAST
―The use of difference to create dramatic meaning.‖ Contrast is an effective means to emphasize,
heighten or intensify. Contrasting colours stand out on the stage. Contrasting sizes, shapes and
sounds draw attention.
To demonstrate and define contrast:
(a) From the previous exercise select two pieces of music which you feel offer a useful contrast,
to create either a serious or humorous effect. Mime a scene which illustrates this contrast.
(b) Explore the effect of improvising with characters who have contrasting characteristics e.g.
fat/thin, loud/ soft, rough/gentle, tall/short, fast/slow, wise/silly. The contrast exaggerates the
feature, throwing emphasis on it.
SYMBOL
―The use of objects, gestures or persons to represent meaning beyond the literal.‖ Every culture
has developed an elaborate series of signals where objects are endowed with meaning. It is
possible to signal complex ideas through commonly recognized symbols.
To demonstrate and define symbols:
Work in pairs. Select an object from a collection of symbols; develop a brief scene which relies
on the symbolic strength of the object to convey meaning, e.g. rose, heart, flag, treasure chest,
suitcase, lipstick on collar, walking stick, pipe, dove, teddy bear, cross, stethoscope, heart, skull,
peace sign, ring, broken doll, sunset, infinity. Gestures: handshake, salute, turned back.
ROLE
Taking on a role requires performers to accept the physicality, attitudes and beliefs of the
characters they are playing. Laban movement exercises provide an excellent springboard for
developing the physicality of character. A range of exercises to develop skill in other aspects of
role may be found in Dramawise by Haseman and O‘Toole. As students become familiar with
each of these elements and devices, they are better able to identify for themselves the areas of
their work which need attention. It is often helpful to step away from the performance briefly and
revisit key elements in order to see the work afresh. Teachers can use the elements as a checklist
as they observe and provide students with meaningful feedback on their performance work.
Chapter-3
Asian Drama
The earliest form of Indian drama was the Sanskrit drama that is said to have its framework
directly given by Lord Shiva who used these techniques to pray to Lord Vishnu. Between the 1st
century AD and the 10th was a period of relative peace in the history of India during which
hundreds of modern plays were written. With the Islamic conquests that began in the 10th and
11th centuries, theatre was discouraged or forbidden entirely. Later, in an attempt to re-assert
indigenous values and ideas, village theatre was encouraged across the subcontinent, developing
in a large number of regional languages from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Modern Indian
theatre developed during the period of colonial rule under the British Empire, from the mid-19th
century until the mid-20th.
Sanskrit theatre
The earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st century AD. The wealth of
archeological evidence from earlier periods offers no indication of the existence of a tradition of
theatre. The ancient Vedas (hymns from between 1500 to 1000 BC that are among the earliest
examples of literature in the world) contain no hint of it (although a small number are composed
in a form of dialogue) and the rituals of the Vedic period do not appear to have developed into
theatre. The Mahābhāṣ ya by Patanjali contains the earliest reference to what may have been the
seeds of Sanskrit drama. This treatise on grammar from 140 BC provides a feasible date for the
beginnings of theatre in India.
The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is A Treatise on Theatre (Nātyaśāstra), a
compendium whose date of composition is uncertain (estimates range from 200 BC to 200 AD)
and whose authorship is attributed to Bharata Muni. The Treatise is the most complete work of
dramaturgy in the ancient world. It addresses acting, dance, music, dramatic construction,
architecture, costuming, make-up, props, the organisation of companies, the audience,
competitions, and offers a mythological account of the origin of theatre.
Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of Sanskrit literature. It utilised stock
characters, such as the hero (nayaka), heroine (nayika), or clown (vidusaka). Actors may have
specialised in a particular type. It was patronized by the kings as well as village assemblies.
Famous early playwrights include Bhasa, Kalidasa (famous for Vikrama and Urvashi, Malavika
and Agnimitra, and The Recognition of Shakuntala), Śudraka (famous for The Little Clay Cart),
Asvaghosa, Daṇ ḍ in, and Emperor Harsha (famous for Nagananda, Ratnavali and Priyadarsika).
Śakuntalā (in English translation) influenced Goethe's Faust (1808–1832).
Modern Indian drama
Rabindranath Tagore, was a pioneering modern playwright who wrote plays noted for their
exploration and questioning of nationalism, identity, spiritualism and material greed . His plays
are written in Bengali and include Chitra (Chitrangada, 1892), The King of the Dark Chamber
(Raja, 1910), The Post Office (Dakghar, 1913), and Red Oleander (Raktakarabi, 1924). Girish
Karnad is a noted playwright, who has written a number of plays that use history and mythology,
to critique and problematize ideas and ideals that are of contemporary relevance. Karnad's
numerous plays such as Tughlaq, Hayavadana, Taledanda and Naga-Mandala are significant
contributions to Indian drama.
Urdu Drama evolved from the prevailing dramatic traditions of North India shaping Rahas or
Raas as practiced by exponents like Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh. His dramatic experiments
led to the famous Inder Sabha of Amanat and later this tradition took the shape of Parsi Theatre.
Agha Hashr Kashmiri is the culmination of this tradition.
In some way or other, Urdu theatre tradition has greatly influenced modern Indian theatre.
Among all the languages Urdu (which was called Hindi by early writers), along with Gujrati,
Marathi and Bengali theatres have kept flourishing and demand for its writers and artists has not
subsided by the drama aficionados. For Urdu drama, no place is better than Bombay Film
industry otherwise known as Hindi film industry. All the early gems of Urdu Theatre (performed
by Parsi Companies) were made into films. Urdu Dramatic tradition has been a spectator‘s
delight since 100 years and counting.
Drama as a theme is made up of several elements. It focuses on life and different aspects of it.
The thing to be noticed here is that drama on stage imitates drama in life. It has been said that,
there has always been a mutual relationship between theatre and real life. Great historical
personalities like Shakespeare have influenced Modern Urdu tradition to a large extent when
Indian, Iranian, Turkish stories and folk was adapted for stage with heavy doses of Urdu poetry.
In modern times writers like Imtiaz Ali Taj, Rafi Peer, Krishan Chander, Manto, Upender Nath
Ashk, Ghulam Rabbani, Prof. Mujeeb and many others shaped this tradition.
While Prof Hasan, Ghulam Jeelani, J.N,Kaushal, Shameem Hanfi, Jameel Shaidayi, etc. belong
to the old generation, contemporary writers like Danish Iqbal, Sayeed Alam, Shahid Anwar,
Iqbal Niyazi, and Anwar are a few postmodern playwrights actively contributing in the field of
Urdu Drama.
Sayeed Alam is known for his wit and humour and more particularly for Plays like 'Ghalib in
New Delhi', 'Big B' and many other gems which are regularly staged for massive turn out of
theatre lovers. Maulana Azad is his magnum opus both for its content and style.
Danish Iqbal's play about 'Dara Shikoh' directed by M. S. Sathyu is considered a modern classic
for the use of newer theatre techniques and contemporary perspective. His other plays are 'Sahir'
on the famous lyricist and revolutionary poet. 'Kuchh Ishq kiya Kuchh Kaam' is another play
written by Danish which is basically a Celebration of the Faiz's poetry, featuring events from the
early part of his life, particularly the events and incidents of pre-partition days which shaped his
life and ideals. 'Chand Roz Aur Meri Jaan' - another play inspired from Faiz's letters written from
various jails during the Rawalpindi Conspiracy days. He has written 14 other plays including
'Dilli Jo Ek Shehr Thaa' and 'Main Gaya Waqt Nahin hoon'. Shahid's 'Three B' is also a
significant play. He has been associated with many groups like 'Natwa' and others. Zaheer
Anwar has kept the flag of Urdu theatre flying in Kolkata. Unlike the writers of previous
generation Sayeed, Shahid, Danish Iqbal and Zaheer do not write bookish plays but their work is
a product of vigorous performing tradition. Iqbal Niyazi of Mumbai has written several plays in
Urdu, his play "AUR KITNE JALYANWALA BAUGH?" won a National award other awards.
Hence this is the only generation after Amanat and Agha Hashr who actually write for stage and
not for libraries.
China
Chinese theatre has a long and complex history. Today it is often called Chinese opera although
this normally refers specifically to the popular form known as Beijing opera and Kunqu; there
have been many other forms of theatre in China, such as zaju.
Japan
Japanese Nō drama is a serious dramatic form that combines drama, music, and dance into a
complete aesthetic performance experience. It developed in the 14th and 15th centuries and has
its own musical instruments and performance techniques, which were often handed down from
father to son. The performers were generally male (for both male and female roles), although
female amateurs also perform Nō dramas. Nō drama was supported by the government, and
particularly the military, with many military commanders having their own troupes and
sometimes performing themselves. It is still performed in Japan today.
Kyōgen is the comic counterpart to Nō drama. It concentrates more on dialogue and less on
music, although Nō instrumentalists sometimes appear also in Kyōgen. Kabuki drama, developed
from the 17th century, is another comic form, which includes dance.
Chapter-4
Forms of Drama
Western opera is a dramatic art form, which arose during the Renaissance in an attempt to revive
the classical Greek drama tradition in which both music and theatre were combined. Being
strongly intertwined with western classical music, the opera has undergone enormous changes in
the past four centuries and it is an important form of theatre until this day. Noteworthy is the
huge influence of the German 19th-century composer Richard Wagner on the opera tradition. In
his view, there was no proper balance between music and theatre in the operas of his time,
because the music seemed to be more important than the dramatic aspects in these works. To
restore the connection with the traditional Greek drama, he entirely renewed the operatic format,
and to emphasize the equal importance of music and drama in these new works, he called them
"music dramas".
Chinese opera has seen a more conservative development over a somewhat longer period of
time.
Pantomime
These stories follow in the tradition of fables and folk tales. Usually there is a lesson learned, and
with some help from the audience, the hero/heroine saves the day. This kind of play uses stock
characters seen in masque and again commedia dell'arte, these characters include the villain
(doctore), the clown/servant (Arlechino/Harlequin/buttons), the lovers etc. These plays usually
have an emphasis on moral dilemmas, and good always triumphs over evil, this kind of play is
also very entertaining making it a very effective way of reaching many people.
Creative drama
Creative drama includes dramatic activities and games used primarily in educational settings
with children. Its roots in the United States began in the early 1900s. Winifred Ward is
considered to be the founder of creative drama in education, establishing the first academic use
of drama in Evanston, Illinois.
Flash drama
Flash drama is a type of theatrical play that does not exceed ten minutes in duration, hence the
name Flash drama. Groups of four to six flash drama plays are popular with school, university
and community drama companies since they offer a wide variety of roles and situations in a
single performance.
There are no set rules for flash plays but the typical play has certain characteristics, such as:
•
Consisting of one act
•
Utilising one to three characters
•
Simple, if any, set design
Crime film
Crime films are films that focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film
varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of
imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.
Yakshagana
Yakshagana (Kannada) is a theater form that combines dance, music, dialogue, costume, makeup, and stage techniques with a unique style and form. This theater style, resembling Western
opera, is mainly found in the coastal districts and the Malenadu region of India. Yakshagana is
traditionally presented from dusk to dawn.
Medical drama
A medical drama is a television program, in which events center upon a hospital, an ambulance
staff, or any medical environment.
In the United States, most medical episodes are one hour long and set in a hospital. Most current
medical Dramatic programming go beyond the events pertaining to the characters' jobs and
portray some aspects of their personal lives. A typical medical drama might have a storyline in
which two doctors fall in love.
Communications theorist Marshall McLuhan, in his 1964 work on the nature of media, predicted
a big success of this particular genre on TV, because such medium "creates an obsession with
bodily welfare".
Costume drama
A costume drama or period drama is a period piece in which elaborate costumes, sets and
properties are featured in order to capture the ambience of a particular era.
The term is usually used in the context of film and television. It is an informal crossover term
that can apply to several genres but is most often heard in the context of historical dramas and
romances, adventure films and swashbucklers. The implication is that the audience is attracted as
much by the lavish costumes as by the content.
The most common type of costume drama is the historical costume drama, both on stage and in
movies. This category includes Barry Lyndon, Amadeus, Braveheart, From Hell and Robin
Hood. Films that are set in the 1930s and 1940s, such as Last Man Standing, may also be placed
in this category. Other examples include Marie Antoinette, Middlemarch and Pride and
Prejudice.
There have been highly successful television series that have been known as costume
dramas/period pieces. Notable examples include Upstairs Downstairs, The Tudors, Mad Men,
Boardwalk Empire, Downton Abbey, Deadwood, Dr. Quinn, and Medicine Woman, Little House
on the Prairie and Freaks and Geeks. There also exist shows that use the effects of a costume
drama/period piece because they are set in a particular era of time, although their true focus is
based around a different genre. Examples of these are Xena: Warrior Princess, Legend of the
Seeker and That '70s Show.
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that puts characters in a lot of danger in order to
appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language,
behavior, or events which resemble them. It is based around having the same character in every
scene, often a hero, damsel in distress, a villain. It is also used in scholarly and historical musical
contexts to refer to dramas of the 18th and 19th centuries in which orchestral music or song was
used to accompany the action. The term originated from the early 19th-century French word
mélodrame, which is derived from Greek melos, music, and French drame, drama (from Late
Latin drāma, which in turn derives from Greek drān, to do, perform).
Legal drama
A legal drama or a courtroom drama is a television show subgenre of dramatic programming.
This subgenre presents fictional drama about law. Law enforcement, crime, detective-based
mystery solving, lawyer work, civil litigation, etc., are all possible focuses of legal dramas.
Common subgenres of legal dramas include detective dramas, police dramas, courtroom dramas,
legal thrillers, etc. Legal dramas come in all shapes and sizes and may also span into other forms
of media, including novels, plays television shows, and films. Legal drama sometimes overlaps
with crime drama, most notably in the case of Law & Order. Most crime drama focuses on crime
investigation and does not feature the court room. An early example of this overlapping form
was Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason, in which the eponymous trial lawyer would usually
defend his clients from their murder charges by investigating the crime before the trial, and
dramatically revealing the actual perpetrator during the closing courtroom scene, by calling some
other person to the stand and interrogating him or her into confessing in open court:
1.
either of having committed the crime
2.
or of having witnessed the crime being perpetrated by someone other than Mason's client,
the defendant.
It is widely believed by most practicing lawyers that legal dramas result in the general public
having misconceptions about the legal process. Many of these misconceptions result from the
desire to create an interesting story. For example, conflict between parties make for an
interesting story, which is why legal dramas emphasize the trial and ignore the fact that the vast
majority of civil and criminal cases in the United States are settled out of court. Legal dramas
also focus on situations where there is an obvious injustice or ones in which either the plaintiff or
defendant is very interesting and unusual. As a result, things such as the insanity defense occur
far more often in legal drama than in real life. Finally, legal dramas often focus on areas of the
legal process which can be portrayed dramatically, such as oral arguments, and ignore areas
which are less easily portrayed, such as researching a written legal brief.
Chapter-5
Dramatic structure
Dramatic structure is the structure of a dramatic work such as a play or film. Many scholars have
analyzed dramatic structure, beginning with Aristotle in his Poetics (c. 335 BC). This article
focuses primarily on Gustav Freytag's analysis of ancient Greek and Shakespearean drama.
History
In his Poetics the Greek philosopher Aristotle put forth the idea that "A whole is what has a
beginning and middle and end" (1450b27). This three-part view of a plot structure (with a
beginning, middle, and end – technically, the protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe) prevailed until
the Roman drama critic Horace advocated a 5-act structure in his Ars Poetica: "Neue minor neu
sit quinto productior actu fabula" (lines 189-190) ("A play should not be shorter or longer than
five acts"). Renaissance dramatists revived the use of the 5-act structure. In 1863, around the
time that playwrights like Henrik Ibsen were abandoning the 5-act structure and experimenting
with 3 and 4-act plays, the German playwright and novelist Gustav Freytag wrote Die Technik
des Dramas, a definitive study of the 5-act dramatic structure, in which he laid out what has
come to be known as Freytag's pyramid. Under Freytag's pyramid, the plot of a story consists of
five parts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and revelation/catastrophe.
Freytag's analysis
According to Freytag, a drama is divided into five parts, or acts, which some refer to as a
dramatic arc: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement.
Although Freytag's analysis of dramatic structure is based on five-act plays, it can be applied
(sometimes in a modified manner) to short stories and novels as well, making dramatic structure
a literary element. Nonetheless, the pyramid is not always easy to use, especially in modern plays
such as Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy", which is actually divided into 25 scenes without
concrete acts.
Rising action
In the rising action, a series of related incidents build toward the point of greatest interest. The
rising action of a story is the series of events that begin immediately after the exposition
(introduction) of the story and builds up to the climax. These events are generally the most
important parts of the story since the entire plot depends on them to set up the climax, and
ultimately the satisfactory resolution of the story itself.
Climax or Crisis
The climax is the turning point, which changes the protagonist‘s fate. If the story is a comedy,
things will have gone badly for the protagonist up to this point; now, the plot will begin to unfold
in his or her favor, often requiring the protagonist to draw on hidden inner strengths. If the story
is a tragedy, the opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things going from good to bad for the
protagonist, often revealing the protagonist's hidden weaknesses.
Falling action
During the falling action, the conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist unravels, with
the protagonist winning or losing against the antagonist. The falling action may contain a
moment of final suspense, in which the final outcome of the conflict is in doubt.
Dénouement, resolution, or catastrophe
The dénouement comprises events from the end of the falling action to the actual ending scene of
the drama or narrative. Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense
of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the reader. Etymologically, the French word
dénouement is derived from the Old French word desnouer, "to untie", from nodus, Latin for
"knot." It is the unraveling or untying of the complexities of a plot.
The comedy ends with a dénouement (a conclusion), in which the protagonist is better off than at
the story's outset. The tragedy ends with a catastrophe, in which the protagonist is worse off than
at the beginning of the narrative. Exemplary of a comic dénouement is the final scene of
Shakespeare‘s comedy As You Like It, in which couples marry, an evildoer repents, two
disguised characters are revealed for all to see, and a ruler is restored to power. In Shakespeare's
tragedies, the dénouement is usually the death of one or more characters.
Criticism
Freytag's analysis was intended to apply to ancient Greek and Shakespearean drama, not modern
drama.
A specific exposition stage is criticized by Lajos Egri in The Art of Dramatic Writing. He states,
―exposition itself is part of the whole play, and not simply a fixture to be used at the beginning
and then discarded.‖ According to Egri, the actions of a character reveal who he/she is, and
exposition should come about naturally within the play, beginning with the initial conflict.
Contemporary dramas increasingly use the fall to increase the relative height of the climax and
dramatic impact (melodrama). The protagonist reaches up but falls and succumbs to doubts,
fears, and limitations. The negative climax occurs when the protagonist has an epiphany and
encounters the greatest fear possible or loses something important, giving the protagonist the
courage to take on another obstacle. This confrontation becomes the classic climax.
Three-act structure
The three-act structure is a model used in writing and in evaluating modern storytelling that
divides a fictional narrative into three parts, often called the Setup, the Confrontation and the
Resolution.
Structure
The first act is usually used for exposition, to establish the main characters, their relationships
and the world they live in. Later in the first act, a dynamic, on-screen incident occurs that
confronts the main character (the protagonist), whose attempts to deal with this incident lead to a
second and more dramatic situation, known as the first turning point, which (a) signals the end of
the first act, (b) ensures life will never be the same again for the protagonist and (c) raises a
dramatic question that will be answered in the climax of the film. The dramatic question should
be framed in terms of the protagonist's call to action, (Will X recover the diamond? Will Y get
the girl? Will Z capture the killer?). This is known as the inciting incident, or catalyst. As an
example, the inciting incident in the 1972 film The Godfather is when Vito Corleone is shot,
which occurs approximately 40 minutes into the film.
The second act, also referred to as "rising action", typically depicts the protagonist's attempt to
resolve the problem initiated by the first turning point, only to find him- or herself in ever
worsening situations. Part of the reason protagonists seem unable to resolve their problems is
because they do not yet have the skills to deal with the forces of antagonism that confront them.
They must not only learn new skills but arrive at a higher sense of awareness of who they are and
what they are capable of, in order to deal with their predicament, which in turn changes who they
are. This is referred to as character development or a character arc. This cannot be achieved
alone and they are usually aided and abetted by mentors and co-protagonists.
The third act features the resolution of the story and its subplots. The climax is the scene or
sequence in which the main tensions of the story are brought to their most intense point and the
dramatic question answered, leaving the protagonist and other characters with a new sense of
who they really are.
Interpretations
In Writing Drama, French writer and director Yves Lavandier shows a slightly different
approach. He maintains that every human action, whether fictitious or real, contains three logical
parts: before the action, during the action, and after the action. Since the climax is part of the
action, Yves Lavandier considers the second act must include the climax, which makes for a
much shorter third act than what is found in most screenwriting theories. A short third act (quick
resolution) is also fundamental to traditional Japanese dramatic structure, in the theory of jo-hakyū.
Chapter-6
Comedy (drama)
Comedy is a word that Greeks and Romans confined to descriptions of stage-plays with happy
endings. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings
and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Divina
Commedia. As time passed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of
performance intended to cause laughter.
The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it has been carefully
investigated by psychologists and agreed upon the predominating characteristics are incongruity
or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also
been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of
laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of
laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional
expression.
Much comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict,
repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations, but there are many recognized genres of
comedy. Satire and political satire use ironic comedy used to portray persons or social
institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of humor.
Parody borrows the form of some popular genre, artwork, or text but uses certain ironic changes
to critique that form from within (though not necessarily in a condemning way). Screwball
comedy derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or
characters. Black comedy is defined by dark humor that makes light of so-called dark or evil
elements in human nature. Similarly scatological humor, sexual humor, and race humor create
comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comedic ways.
A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper
class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize the behavior and mannerisms of its members.
Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms, and
focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love.
Etymology
The word "comedy" is derived from the Classical Greek κωμῳδία, which is a compound either
of κῶμος (revel) or κώμη (village) and ᾠδή (singing): it is possible that κῶμος itself is derived
from κώμη, and originally meant a village revel. The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός), which
strictly means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage, generally confined to the sense
of "laughter-provoking".The word came into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and
Italian commedia and has, over time, passed through various shades of meaning.
History
In ancient Greece, comedy seems to have originated in songs or recitations aporpos of fertility
festivals or gatherings, or also in making fun at other people or stereotypes. In the Poetics,
Aristotle states that comedy originated in phallic songs and the light treatment of the otherwise
base and ugly. He also adds that the origins of comedy are obscure because it was not treated
seriously from its inception.
Northrop Frye described the comic genre as a drama that pits two societies against each other in
an amusing agon or conflict. He depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a
"Society of the Old", The Anatomy of Criticism. 1957, but this dichotomy is seldom described as
an entirely satisfactory explanation. A later view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a
struggle between a powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes;
in this sense, the youth is understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left
with little choice but to take recourse to ruses which engender very dramatic.
Types of comic drama:
•
Ancient Greek comedy, as practiced by Aristophanes and Menander
•
Ancient Roman comedy, as practiced by Plautus and Terence
•
Ancient Indian comedy, as practiced in Sanskrit drama
•
Burlesque, from Music hall and Vaudeville to Performance art
•
Citizen comedy, as practiced by Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton and Ben Jonson
•
Clowns such as Richard Tarlton, William Kempe and Robert Armin
•
Comedy of humors, as practiced by Ben Jonson and George Chapman
•
Comedy of intrigue, as practiced by Niccolò Machiavelli and Lope de Vega
•
Comedy of manners, as practiced by Molière, William Wycherley and William Congreve
•
Comedy of menace, as practiced by David Campton and Harold Pinter
•
comédie larmoyante or 'tearful comedy', as practiced by Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La
Chaussée and Louis-Sébastien Mercier
•
Commedia dell'arte, as practiced in the twentieth-century by Dario Fo, Vsevolod
Meyerhold and Jacques Copeau
•
Farce, from Georges Feydeau to Joe Orton and Alan Ayckbourn
•
Jester
•
Laughing comedy, as practiced by Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan
•
Restoration comedy, as practiced by George Etherege, Aphra Behn and John Vanbrugh
•
Sentimental comedy, as practiced by Colley Cibber and Richard Steele
•
Shakespearean comedy, as practiced by William Shakespeare
•
Dadaist and Surrealist performance, usually in cabaret form
•
Theatre of the Absurd, used by some to describe Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Jean
Genet and Eugène Ionesco
Chapter-7
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue
between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. Plays are
performed at a variety of levels, from Broadway, Off-Broadway, regional theater, to Community
theatre, as well a University or school productions. There are rare dramatists, notably George
Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed or read. The
term "play" can refer to both the written works of playwrights and to their complete theatrical
performance.
Genres
Comedy
Comedies are plays which are designed to be humorous. Comedies are often filled with witty
remarks, unusual characters, and strange circumstances. Certain comedies are geared toward
different age groups. Comedies were one of the two original play types of Ancient Greece, along
with tragedies. An example of a comedy would be William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer
Night Dream," or for a more modern example the skits from "Saturday Night Live".
Farce
A generally nonsensical genre of play, farces are often overacted and often involve slapstick
humour. An example of a farce includes William Shakespeare's play "The Comedy of Errors," or
Mark Twain's play "Is He Dead?"
Satirical
A satire play takes a comic look at current events people while at the same time attempting to
make a political or social statement, for example pointing out corruption. An example of a satire
would be Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector and Aristophanes' Lysistrata.
Theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the
experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers
may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech,
song, music, and dance. Elements of design and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality,
presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named
by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for
viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe").
Modern Western theatre derives in large measure from ancient Greek drama, from which it
borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock
characters, and plot elements. Theatre scholar Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical
language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that
differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general.
Theatre today, broadly defined, includes performances of plays and musicals, ballets, operas and
various other forms.
Classical and Hellenistic Greece
The city-state of Athens is where western theatre originated. It was part of a broader culture of
theatricality and performance in classical Greece that included festivals, religious rituals, politics,
law, athletics and gymnastics, music, poetry, weddings, funerals, and symposia. Participation in
the city-state's many festivals—and attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member (or
even as a participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—was an important part of
citizenship. Civic participation also involved the evaluation of the rhetoric of orators evidenced
in performances in the law-court or political assembly, both of which were understood as
analogous to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic vocabulary. The Greeks
also developed the concepts of dramatic criticism, acting as a career, and theatre architecture.
The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr
play. The origins of theatre in ancient Greece, according to Aristotle (384–322 BCE), the first
theoretician of theatre, are to be found in the festivals that honoured Dionysus.The performances
were given in semi-circular auditoria cut into hillsides, capable of seating 10,000–20,000 people.
The stage consisted of a dancing floor (orchestra), dressing room and scene-building area
(skene). Since the words were the most important part, good acoustics and clear delivery were
paramount. The actors (always men) wore masks appropriate to the characters they represented,
and each might play several parts. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a
type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of the city-state.
Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE
(from the end of which it began to spread throughout the Greek world), and continued to be
popular until the beginning of the Hellenistic period. No tragedies from the 6th century BCE and
only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in during the 5th century BCE have
survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The origins of
tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE it was institution alised in competitions
(agon) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility). As
contestants in the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage
drama) playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works
were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies
and one satyr play. The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have begun as early
as 534 BCE; official records (didaskaliai) begin from 501 BCE, when the satyr play was
introduced. Most Athenian tragedies dramatise events from Greek mythology, though The
Persians—which stages the Persian response to news of their military defeat at the Battle of
Salamis in 480 BCE—is the notable exception in the surviving drama. When Aeschylus won
first prize for it at the City Dionysia in 472 BCE, he had been writing tragedies for more than 25
years, yet its tragic treatment of recent history is the earliest example of drama to survive. More
than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed 5th-century Athenian tragedy in the
oldest surviving work of dramatic theory—his Poetics (c. 335 BCE).
Athenian comedy is conventionally divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle
Comedy", and "New Comedy". Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven
surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost (preserved only in
relatively short fragments in authors such as Athenaeus of Naucratis). New Comedy is known
primarily from the substantial papyrus fragments of Menander. Aristotle defined comedy as a
representation of laughable people that involves some kind of blunder or ugliness that does not
cause pain or disaster.
Roman theatre
Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under the Romans. The Roman historian
Livy wrote that the Romans first experienced theatre in the 4th century BCE, with a performance
by Etruscan actors. Beacham argues that they had been familiar with "pre-theatrical practices"
for some time before that recorded contact. The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving and
diverse art form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude dancing, and
acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus's broadly appealing situation comedies, to the high-style,
verbally elaborate tragedies of Seneca. Although Rome had a native tradition of performance, the
Hellenization of Roman culture in the 3rd century BCE had a profound and energizing effect on
Roman theatre and encouraged the development of Latin literature of the highest quality for the
stage. The only surviving Roman tragedies, indeed the only plays of any kind from the Roman
Empire, are ten dramas- nine of them pallilara- attributed to Lucuis Annaeus Seneca (4 b.c.-65
a.d.), the Corduba-born Stoic philosopher and tutor of Nero.
Post-classical theatre in the West
Theatre took on many alternate forms in the West between the 15th and 19th centuries, including
commedia dell'arte and melodrama. The general trend was away from the poetic drama of the
Greeks and the Renaissance and toward a more naturalistic prose style of dialogue, especially
following the Industrial Revolution.
Theatre took a big pause during 1642 and 1660 in England because of Cromwell's Interregnum.
Theatre was seen as something sinful and the Puritans tried very hard to drive it out of their
society. Because of this stagnant period, once Charles II came back to the throne in 1660 in the
Restoration, theatre (among other arts) exploded because of a lot of influence from France,
where Charles was in exile the years previous to his reign.
One of the big changes was the new theatre house. Instead of the types in the Elizabethan era that
were like the Globe Theatre, round with no place for the actors to really prep for the next act and
with no "theater manners,‖ it transformed into a place of refinement, with a stage in front and
somewhat stadium seating in front of it. This way, seating was more prioritized because some
seats were obviously better than others because the seating was no longer all the way around the
stage. The king would have the best seat in the house: the very middle of the theatre, which got
the widest view of the stage as well as the best way to see the point of view and vanishing point
that the stage was constructed around. Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg was one of the most
influential set designers of the time because of his use of floor space and scenery.
Because of the turmoil before this time, there was still some controversy about what should and
should not be put on the stage. Jeremy Collier, a preacher, was one of the heads in this
movement through his piece A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English
Stage. The beliefs in this paper were mainly held by non-theatre goers and the remainder of the
Puritans and very religious of the time. The main question was if seeing something immoral on
stage effects behavior in the lives of those who watch it, a controversy that is still playing out
today.
The eighteenth century also introduced women to the stage, which was viewed as inappropriate
before. These women were looked at as celebrities (also a newer concept, thanks to some ideas
on individualism that were beginning to be born in Renaissance Humanism) but on the other
hand, it was still very new and revolutionary that they were on the stage and some said they were
unladylike and looked down on. Charless II did not like young men playing the parts of young
women, so he asked that women play their own parts. Because women were allowed on the
stage, playwrights had more leeway with plot twists like dressing them up as men and narrow
escapes of morally sticky situations as forms of comedy.
Comedies were full of the young and very much in vogue, with the storyline following their love
lives: commonly a young roguish hero professing his love to the chaste and free minded heroine
near the end of the play, much like Sheridan's The School for Scandal. Many of the comedies
were fashioned after the French tradition, mainly Molière, again hailing back to the French
influence brought back by the King and the Royals after their exile. Molière was one of the top
comedic playwrights of the time, revolutionizing the way comedy was written and performed by
combining Commedia dell'arte, French comedy and satire to create some of the longest lasting
and most influential satiric comedies. Tragedies were similarly victorious in their sense of
righting political power, especially poignant because of the recent Restoration to the Crown.
They were also imitations of French tragedy, although the French had a larger distinction
between comedy and tragedy, whereas the English fudged the lines occasionally and put some
comedic parts in their tragedies. Common forms of non-comedic plays were sentimental
comedies as well as something that would later be called tragedie bourgeoise, the tragedy of
common life, were more popular in England because they applied more to the English
sensibilities.
Through the 19th century, the popular theatrical forms of Romanticism, melodrama, Victorian
burlesque and the well-made plays of Scribe and Sardou gave way to the problem plays of
Naturalism and Realism; the farces of Feydeau; Wagner's operatic Gesamtkunstwerk; musical
theatre (including Gilbert and Sullivan's operas); F. C. Burnand's, W. S. Gilbert's and Wilde's
drawing-room comedies; Symbolism; proto-Expressionism in the late works of August
Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen and Edwardian musical comedy.
These trends continued through the 20th century in the realism of Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg,
the political theatre of Erwin Piscator and Bertolt Brecht, the so-called Theatre of the Absurd of
Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco, American and British musicals, the collective creations of
companies of actors and directors such as Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, experimental
and postmodern theatre of Robert Wilson and Robert Lepage, the postcolonial theatre of August
Wilson or Tomson Highway, and Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed.
Indian Theatre
The first form of Indian theatre was the Sanskrit theatre. It began after the development of Greek
and Roman theatre and before the development of theatre in other parts of Asia. It emerged
sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century CE and flourished between the 1st
century CE and the 10th, which was a period of relative peace in the history of India during
which hundreds of plays were written. Japanese forms of Kabuki, Nō, and Kyōgen developed in
the 17th century CE. Theatre in the medieval Islamic world included puppet theatre (which
included hand puppets, shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known
as ta'ziya, where actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays
revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom) of Ali's sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali.
Secular plays were known as akhraja, recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were less
common than puppetry and ta'ziya theatre.
Types
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek
word meaning "action", which is derived from the verb δράω, dráō, "to do" or "to act". The
enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes
collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The structure of dramatic
texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and
collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601) by Shakespeare and the classical
Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BCE) by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of
the art of drama. A modern example is Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1956).
Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic
and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BCE)—the earliest work of dramatic
theory.The use of "drama" in the narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the
19th century. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for
example, Zola's Thérèse Raquin (1873) or Chekhov's Ivanov (1887). In Ancient Greece however,
the word drama encompassed all theatrical plays, tragic, comic, or anything in between.
Drama is often combined with music and dance: the drama in opera is generally sung
throughout; musicals generally include both spoken dialogue and songs; and some forms of
drama have incidental music or musical accompaniment underscoring the dialogue (melodrama
and Japanese Nō, for example). In certain periods of history (the ancient Roman and modern
Romantic) some dramas have been written to be read rather than performed. In improvisation,
the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance; performers devise a dramatic script
spontaneously before an audience.
Musical theatre
Music and theatre have had a close relationship since ancient times—Athenian tragedy, for
example, was a form of dance-drama that employed a chorus whose parts were sung (to the
accompaniment of an aulos—an instrument comparable to the modern clarinet), as were some of
the actors' responses and their 'solo songs' (monodies). Modern musical theatre is a form of
theatre that also combines music, spoken dialogue, and dance. It emerged from comic opera
(especially Gilbert and Sullivan), variety, vaudeville, and music hall genres of the late 19th and
early 20th century. After the Edwardian musical comedy that began in the 1890s, the Princess
Theatre musicals of the early 20th century, and comedies in the 1920s and 1930s (such as the
works of Rodgers and Hammerstein), with Oklahoma! (1943), musicals moved in a more
dramatic direction. Famous musicals over the subsequent decades included My Fair Lady (1956),
West Side Story (1957), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les
Misérables (1980) and The Phantom of the Opera (1986), as well as more contemporary hits
including Rent (1994), The Lion King (1997) and Wicked (2003).
Musical theatre may be produced on an intimate scale Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, and
elsewhere, but it often includes spectacle. For instance, Broadway and West End musicals often
Comedy
Theatre productions that use humour as a vehicle to tell a story qualify as comedies. This may
include a modern farce such as Boeing Boeing or a classical play such as As You Like It.
Theatre expressing bleak, controversial or taboo subject matter in a deliberately humorous way is
referred to as black comedy.
Tragedy
Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude;
in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in
separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting
the proper purgation of these emotions.
Aristotle's phrase "several kinds being found in separate parts of the play" is a reference to the
structural origins of drama. In it the spoken parts were written in the Attic dialect whereas the
choral (recited or sung) ones in the Doric dialect, these discrepancies reflecting the differing
religious origins and poetic metres of the parts that were fused into a new entity, the theatrical
drama.
Tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role
historically in the self-definition of Western civilisation. That tradition has been multiple and
discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity
and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and
Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. From its obscure origins in the
theatres of Athens 2,500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction of the work of
Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, through its singular articulations in the works of
Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Racine, and Schiller, to the more recent naturalistic tragedy of
Strindberg, Beckett's modernist meditations on death, loss and suffering, and Müller's
postmodernist reworkings of the tragic canon, tragedy has remained an important site of cultural
experimentation, negotiation, struggle, and change. In the wake of Aristotle's Poetics (335 BCE),
tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, whether at the scale of poetry in general
(where the tragic divides against epic and lyric) or at the scale of the drama (where tragedy is
opposed to comedy). In the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama,
melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre.
Improvisation
Improvisation has been a consistent feature of theatre, with the Commedia dell'arte in the
sixteenth century being recognised as the first improvisation form. Popularized by Nobel Prize
Winner Dario Fo and troupes such as the Upright Citizens Brigade improvisational theatre
continues to evolve with many different streams and philosophies. Keith Johnstone and Viola
Spolin are recognized as the first teachers of improvisation in modern times, with Johnstone
exploring improvisation as an alternative to scripted theatre and the American Spolin and her
successors exploring improvisation principally as a tool for developing dramatic work or skills or
as a form for situational comedy
Chapter-8
Theories of theatre
Having been an important part of human culture for more than 2,500 years, theatre has evolved a
wide range of different theories and practices. Some are related to political or spiritual
ideologies, while others are based purely on "artistic" concerns. Some processes focus on a story,
some on theatre as event, and some on theatre as catalyst for social change. The classical Greek
philosopher Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 BCE) is the earliest-surviving example and its arguments
have influenced theories of theatre ever since. In it, he offers an account of what he calls "poetry"
(a term which in Greek literally means "making" and in this context includes drama—comedy,
tragedy, and the satyr play—as well as lyric poetry, epic poetry, and the dithyramb). He
examines its "first principles" and identifies its genres and basic elements; his analysis of tragedy
constitutes the core of the discussion. He argues that tragedy consists of six qualitative parts,
which are (in order of importance) mythos or "plot", ethos or "character", dianoia or "thought",
lexis or "diction", melos or "song", and opsis or "spectacle". "Although Aristotle's Poetics is
universally acknowledged in the Western critical tradition," Marvin Carlson explains, "almost
every detail about his seminal work has aroused divergent opinions." Important theatre
practitioners of the 20th century include Konstantin Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Jacques
Copeau, Edward Gordon Craig, Bertolt Brecht, Antonin Artaud, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook,
Jerzy Grotowski, Augusto Boal, Eugenio Barba, Dario Fo, Keith Johnstone and Robert Wilson
(director).
Stanislavski treated the theatre as an art-form that is autonomous from literature and one in
which the playwright's contribution should be respected as that of only one of an ensemble of
creative artists. His innovative contribution to modern acting theory has remained at the core of
mainstream western performance training for much of the last century. That many of the precepts
of his system of actor training seem to be common sense and self-evident testifies to its
hegemonic success. Actors frequently employ his basic concepts without knowing they do so.
Thanks to its promotion and elaboration by acting teachers who were former students and the
many translations of his theoretical writings, Stanislavski's 'system' acquired an unprecedented
ability to cross cultural boundaries and developed an international reach, dominating debates
about acting in Europe and the United States. Many actors routinely equate his 'system' with the
North American Method, although the latter's exclusively psychological techniques contrast
sharply with Stanislavski's multivariant, holistic and psychophysical approach, which explores
character and action both from the 'inside out' and the 'outside in' and treats the actor's mind and
body as parts of a continuum.
Technical aspects of theatre
Theatre presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of reception. The
structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this
collaborative production and collective reception. The production of plays usually involves
contributions from a playwright, director, a cast of actors, and a technical production team that
includes a scenic or set designer, lighting designer, costume designer, sound designer, stage
manager, and production manager. Depending on the production, this team may also include a
composer, dramaturg, video designer or fight director.
Stagecraft is a generic term referring to the technical aspects of theatrical, film, and video
production. It includes, but is not limited to, constructing and rigging scenery, hanging and
focusing of lighting, design and procurement of costumes, makeup, procurement of props, stage
management, and recording and mixing of sound. Stagecraft is distinct from the wider umbrella
term of scenography. Considered a technical rather than an artistic field, it relates primarily to
the practical implementation of a designer's artistic vision. In its most basic form, stagecraft is
managed by a single person (often the stage manager of a smaller production) who arranges all
scenery, costumes, lighting, and sound, and organizes the cast. At a more professional level, for
example modern Broadway houses, stagecraft is managed by hundreds of skilled carpenters,
painters, electricians, stagehands, stitchers, wigmakers, and the like. This modern form of
stagecraft is highly technical and specialized: it comprises many sub-disciplines and a vast trove
of history and tradition. The majority of stagecraft lies between these two extremes. Regional
theatres and larger community theatres will generally have a technical director and a complement
of designers, each of whom has a direct hand in their respective designs.
Theatre organization and administration
There are many modern theatre movements which go about producing theatre in a variety of
ways.
Theatrical enterprise varies enormously in sophistication and purpose. People who are involved
vary from professionals to hobbyists to spontaneous novices. Theatre can be performed with no
money at all or on a grand scale with multi-million dollar budgets. This diversity manifests in the
abundance of theatre sub-categories, which include:
•
Broadway theatre and West End theatre
•
Community theatre
•
Dinner theatre
•
Fringe theatre
•
Off-Broadway and Off West End
•
Off-Off-Broadway
•
Regional theater in the United States
•
Summer stock theatre
Repertory companies
While most modern theatre companies rehearse one piece of theatre at a time, perform that piece
for a set "run", retire the piece, and begin rehearsing a new show, repertory companies rehearse
multiple shows at one time. These companies are able to perform these various pieces upon
request and often perform works for years before retiring them. Most dance companies operate
on this repertory system. The Royal National Theatre in London performs on a repertory system.
Repertory theatre generally involves a group of similarly accomplished actors, and relies more
on the reputation of the group than on an individual star actor. It also typically relies less on strict
control by a director and less on adherence to theatrical conventions, since actors who have
worked together in multiple productions can respond to each other without relying as much on
convention or external direction.
Producing vs. presenting
In order to put on a piece of theatre, both a theatre company and a theatre venue are needed.
When a theatre company is the sole company in residence at a theatre venue, these theatres (and
its corresponding theatre company) are called a resident theatre or a producing theatre, because
the venue produces its own work. Other theatre companies, as well as dance companies, do not
have their own theatre venue. These companies perform at rental theatres or at presenting
theatres. Both rental and presenting theatres have no full-time resident companies. They do,
however, sometimes have one or more part-time resident companies, in addition to other
independent partner companies who arrange to use the space when available. A rental theatre
allows the independent companies to seek out the space, while a presenting theatre seeks out the
independent companies to support their work by presenting them on their stage.
Some performance groups perform in non-theatrical spaces. Such performances can take place
outside or inside, in a non-traditional performance space, and include street theatre, and sitespecific theatre. Non-traditional venues can be used to create more immersive or meaningful
environments for audiences. They can sometimes be modified more heavily than traditional
theatre venues, or can accommodate different kinds of equipment, lighting and sets.
A touring company is an independent theatre or dance company that travels, often
internationally, being presented at a different theatre in each city.
Unions
There are many theatre unions including Actors' Equity Association (for actors and stage
managers), the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), and the International
Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE, for designers and technicians). Many theatres
require that their staff be members of these organizations.
Chapter-9
Theater Structure
Basic Elements:
On and off stage
The most important of these areas is the acting space generally known as the stage. In some
theaters, specifically proscenium theaters, arena theaters and amphitheaters, this area is
permanent part of the structure. In a blackbox theater the acting area is undefined so that each
theater may adapt specifically to a production.
In addition to these acting spaces, there may be offstage spaces as well. These include wings on
either side of a proscenium stage (called "backstage" or "offstage") where props, sets and scenery
may be stored as well as a place for actors awaiting an entrance. A Prompter's box may be found
backstage. In an amphitheater, an area behind the stage may be designated for such uses while a
blackbox theater may have spaces outside of the actual theater designated for such uses.
Often a theater will incorporate other spaces intended for the performers and other personnel. A
booth facing the stage may be incorporated into the house where lighting and sound personnel
may view the show and run their respective instruments. Other rooms in the building may be
used for dressing rooms, rehearsal rooms, spaces for constructing sets, props and costumes, as
well as storage.
Seating and audience
All theaters provide a space for an audience. The audience is usually separated from the
performers by the proscenium arch. In proscenium theaters and amphitheaters, the proscenium
arch, like the stage, is a permanent feature of the structure. This area is known as the auditorium
or the house. Like the stage in a blackbox theater, this area is also defined by the production
The seating areas can include some or all of the following:
•
Stalls or arena: the lower flat area, usually below or at the same level as the stage. The
word parterre (occasionally, parquet) is sometimes used to refer to a particular subset of this
area. In North American usage this is usually the rear seating block beneath the gallery in the
orchestra stalls whereas Britain it can mean either the area immediately in front of the orchestra,
or the whole of the stalls. The term can also refer to the side stalls in some usages. Derived from
the gardening term parterre, the usage refers to the sectioned pattern of both the seats of an
auditorium and of the planted beds seen in garden construction. Throughout the 18th century the
term was also used to refer to the theater audience who occupied the parterre.
•
Balconies or galleries: one or more raised seating platforms towards the rear of the
auditorium. In larger theaters, multiple levels are stacked vertically above or behind the stalls.
The first level is usually called the dress circle or grand circle. The next level may be the loge,
from the French version of loggia. A second tier inserted beneath the main balcony may be the
mezzanine. The highest platform, or upper circle is sometimes known as the gods, especially in
large opera houses, where the seats can be very high and a long distance from the stage.
•
Boxes (state box or stage box): typically placed immediately to the front, side and above
the level of the stage. They are often separate rooms with an open viewing area which typically
seat five people or fewer. These seats are typically considered the most prestigious of the house.
A state box or royal box is sometimes provided for dignitaries.
History of Theatre Construction
Ancient Greece
Greek theater buildings were called a theatron ('seeing place'). The theaters were large, open-air
structures constructed on the slopes of hills. They consisted of three principal elements: the
orchestra, the skene, and the audience.
The centerpiece of the theater was the orchestra, or "dancing place", a large circular or
rectangular area. The orchestra was the site the choral performances, the religious rites, and,
possibly, the acting. An altar was located in the middle of the orchestra; in Athens, the altar was
dedicated to Dionysus.
Behind the orchestra was a large rectangular building called the skene (meaning "tent" or "hut").
It was used as a "backstage" area where actors could change their costumes and masks, but also
served to represent the location of the plays, which were usually set in front of a palace or house.
Typically, there were two or three doors in the skene that led out onto orchestra, and from which
actors could enter and exit. At first, the skene was literally a tent or hut, put up for the religious
festival and taken down when it was finished. Later, the skene became a permanent stone
structure. These structures were sometimes painted to serve as backdrops, hence the English
word scenery.
In front of the skene there may have been a raised acting area called the proskenion, the ancestor
of the modern proscenium stage. It is possible that the actors (as opposed to the chorus) acted
entirely on the proskenion, but this is not certain.
Rising from the circle of the orchestra was the audience. The audience sat on tiers of benches
built up on the side of a hill. Greek theaters, then, could only be built on hills that were correctly
shaped. A typical theater was enormous, able to seat around 15,000 viewers.
Roman Theater, Orange, France
Greek theaters were not enclosed; the audience could see each other and the surrounding
countryside as well as the actors and chorus.
See also: Theatre of Ancient Greece
Ancient Rome
The Romans copied the Greek style of building, but tended not to be so concerned about the
location, being prepared to build walls and terraces instead of looking for a naturally-occurring
site. (See Roman theater for more.)
Elizabethan England
1596 illustration of Swan Theater, Southwark, London, showing round structure
During the Elizabethan era in England, theaters were constructed of wooden framing, infilled
with wattle and daub and roofed with thatch. They consisted of several floors of covered
galleries surrounding a courtyard which was open to the elements. A large portion of the
audience would stand in the yard, directly in front of the stage. This layout is said to derive from
the practice of holding plays in the yard of an inn. Archaeological excavations of The Rose
theater at London's Bankside, built 1587, have shown that it had en external diameter of 72 feet
(22 metres). The nearby Globe Theater (1599) was larger, at 100 feet (30 metres). Other
evidence for the round shape is a line in Shakespeare's Henry V which calls the building "this
wooden O", and several rough woodcut illustrations of the city of London.
Recreation of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London
Around this time, the green room, a place for actors to wait until required on stage, became
common terminology in English theaters.
The Globe has now been rebuilt as a fully working and producing theater near its original site
(largely thanks to the efforts of film director Sam Wanamaker) to give modern audiences an idea
of the environment for which Shakespeare and other playwrights of the period were writing.
Enclosed theaters
During the Renaissance, the first modern enclosed theaters were constructed in Italy. Their
structure was similar to that of ancient theaters, with a cavea and an architectural scenery,
representing a city street. The oldest surviving examples of this style are the Teatro Olimpico in
Vicenza (1580) and the Teatro all'antica in Sabbioneta (1590).
At the beginning of 17th century theaters had moved indoors and began to resemble the
arrangement we see most frequently today, with a stage separated from the audience by a
proscenium arch. This coincided with a growing interest in scenic elements painted in
perspective, such as those created by Inigo Jones, Nicola Sabbatini and the Galli da Bibiena
family. The perspective of these elements could only be viewed properly from the center back of
the auditorium, in the so-called "duke's chair." The higher one's status, the closer they would be
seated to this vantage point, and the more the accurately they would be able to see the
perspective elements.
The first enclosed theaters were court theaters, open only to the sovereigns and the nobility. The
first opera house open to the public was the Teatro San Cassiano (1637) in Venice. The Italian
opera houses were the model for the subsequent theaters throughout Europe.
German Operatic influence
Richard Wagner placed great importance on "mood setting" elements, such as a darkened theater,
sound effects, and seating arrangements (lowering the orchestra pit) which focused the attention
of audience on the stage, completely immersing them in the imaginary world of the music drama.
These concepts were revolutionary at the time, but they have since come to be taken for granted
in the modern operatic environment as well as many other types of theatrical endeavors.
Contemporary theaters
The Alley Theater, home to the Alley Theater Company, Houston, Texas
Queen's Theater (Ganta, Liberia)
Contemporary theaters are often non-traditional, such as very adaptable spaces, or theaters where
audience and performers are not separated. A major example of this is the modular theater, (see
for example the Walt Disney Modular Theater). This large theater has floors and walls divided
into small movable sections, with the floor sections on adjustable hydraulic pylons, so that the
space may be adjusted into any configuration for each individual play. As new styles of theater
performance have evolved, so has the desire to improve or recreate performance venues. This
applies equally to artistic and presentation techniques, such as stage lighting.
Specific designs of contemporary live theaters include proscenium, thrust, black box theater,
theater in the round, amphitheater, and arena. In the classical Indian dance, Natya Shastra defines
three stage types. In Australia and New Zealand a small and simple theater, particularly one
contained within a larger venue, is a theatrette. The word originated in 1920s London, for a
small-scale music venue.
Theatrical performances can also take place in venues adapted from other purposes, such as train
carriages. In recent years the Edinburgh Fringe has seen performances in an elevator and a taxi.
Chapter-9
Shakespeare's plays
Sir John Gilbert's 1849 painting: The Plays of Shakespeare, containing scenes and characters
from several of William Shakespeare's plays.
William Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English
language and in Western literature. Traditionally, the 38 plays are divided into the genres of
tragedy, history, and comedy; they have been translated into every major living language, in
addition to being continually performed all around the world.
Many of his plays appeared in print as a series of quartos, but approximately half of them
remained unpublished until 1623, when the posthumous First Folio was published. The
traditional division of his plays into tragedies, comedies and histories follows the categories used
in the First Folio. However, modern criticism has labelled some of these plays "problem plays"
that elude easy categorisation, or perhaps purposely break generic conventions, and has
introduced the term romances for what scholars believe to be his later comedies.
When Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s, dramatists writing for
London's new commercial playhouses (such as The Curtain) were combining two different
strands of dramatic tradition into a new and distinctively Elizabethan synthesis. Previously, the
most common forms of popular English theatre were the Tudor morality plays. These plays,
celebrating piety generally, use personified moral attributes to urge or instruct the protagonist to
choose the virtuous life over Evil. The characters and plot situations are largely symbolic rather
than realistic. As a child, Shakespeare would likely have seen this type of play (along with,
perhaps, mystery plays and miracle plays).
The other strand of dramatic tradition was classical aesthetic theory. This theory was derived
ultimately from Aristotle; in Renaissance England, however, the theory was better known
through its Roman interpreters and practitioners. At the universities, plays were staged in a more
academic form as Roman closet dramas. These plays, usually performed in Latin, adhered to
classical ideas of unity and decorum, but they were also more static, valuing lengthy speeches
over physical action. Shakespeare would have learned this theory at grammar school, where
Plautus and especially Terence were key parts of the curriculum and were taught in editions with
lengthy theoretical introductions.
Contents
1 Theatre and stage setup
2 Elizabethan Shakespeare
3 Jacobean Shakespeare
4 Style
4.1 Soliloquies in plays
5 Source material of the plays
6 Canonical plays
6.1 Comedies
6.2 Histories
6.3 Tragedies
7 Dramatic collaborations
8 Lost plays
9 Plays possibly by Shakespeare
10 Shakespeare and the textual problem
11 Alternative authorship proposals
Theatre and stage setup
Archaeological excavations on the foundations of the Rose and the Globe in the late twentieth
century showed that all London English Renaissance theatres were built around similar general
plans. Despite individual differences, the public theatres were three stories high, and built around
an open space at the centre. Usually polygonal in plan to give an overall rounded effect, three
levels of inward-facing galleries overlooked the open centre into which jutted the stage—
essentially a platform surrounded on three sides by the audience, only the rear being restricted
for the entrances and exits of the actors and seating for the musicians. The upper level behind the
stage could be used as a balcony, as in Romeo and Juliet, or as a position for a character to
harangue a crowd, as in Julius Caesar.
Usually built of timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs, the early theatres were
vulnerable to fire, and gradually were replaced (when necessary) with stronger structures. When
the Globe burned down in June 1613, it was rebuilt with a tile roof.
A different model was developed with the Blackfriars Theatre, which came into regular use on a
long term basis in 1599. The Blackfriars was small in comparison to the earlier theatres, and
roofed rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre in ways that its predecessors
did not.
Elizabethan Shakespeare
For Shakespeare as he began to write, both traditions were alive; they were, moreover, filtered
through the recent success of the University Wits on the London stage. By the late 16th century,
the popularity of morality and academic plays waned as the English Renaissance took hold, and
playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe revolutionised theatre. Their plays
blended the old morality drama with classical theory to produce a new secular form. The new
drama combined the rhetorical complexity of the academic play with the bawdy energy of the
moralities. However, it was more ambiguous and complex in its meanings, and less concerned
with simple allegory. Inspired by this new style, Shakespeare continued these artistic strategies,
creating plays that not only resonated on an emotional level with audiences but also explored and
debated the basic elements of what it means to be human. What Marlowe and Kyd did for
tragedy, John Lyly and George Peele, among others, did for comedy: they offered models of
witty dialogue, romantic action, and exotic, often pastoral location that formed the basis of
Shakespeare's comedic mode throughout his career.
Shakespeare's Elizabethan tragedies (including the history plays with tragic designs, such as
Richard II) demonstrate his relative independence from classical models. He takes from Aristotle
and Horace the notion of decorum; with few exceptions, he focuses on high-born characters and
national affairs as the subject of tragedy. In most other respects, though, the early tragedies are
far closer to the spirit and style of moralities. They are episodic, packed with character and
incident; they are loosely unified by a theme or character. In this respect, they reflect clearly the
influence of Marlowe, particularly of Tamburlaine. Even in his early work, however,
Shakespeare generally shows more restraint than Marlowe; he resorts to grandiloquent rhetoric
less frequently, and his attitude towards his heroes is more nuanced, and sometimes more
sceptical, than Marlowe's. By the turn of the century, the bombast of Titus Andronicus had
vanished, replaced by the subtlety of Hamlet.
In comedy, Shakespeare strayed even further from classical models. The Comedy of Errors, an
adaptation of Menaechmi, follows the model of new comedy closely. Shakespeare's other
Elizabethan comedies are more romantic. Like Lyly, he often makes romantic intrigue (a
secondary feature in Latin new comedy) the main plot element; even this romantic plot is
sometimes given less attention than witty dialogue, deceit, and jests. The "reform of manners,"
which Horace considered the main function of comedy, survives in such episodes as the gulling
of Malvolio.
Jacobean Shakespeare
Shakespeare reached maturity as a dramatist at the end of Elizabeth's reign, and in the first years
of the reign of James. In these years, he responded to a deep shift in popular tastes, both in
subject matter and approach. At the turn of the decade, he responded to the vogue for dramatic
satire initiated by the boy players at Blackfriars and St. Paul's. At the end of the decade, he seems
to have attempted to capitalise on the new fashion for tragicomedy even collaborating with John
Fletcher, the writer who had popularised the genre in England.
The influence of younger dramatists such as John Marston and Ben Jonson is seen not only in the
problem plays, which dramatise intractable human problems of greed and lust, but also in the
darker tone of the Jacobean tragedies. The Marlovian, heroic mode of the Elizabethan tragedies
is gone, replaced by a darker vision of heroic natures caught in environments of pervasive
corruption. As a sharer in both the Globe and in the King's Men, Shakespeare never wrote for the
boys' companies; however, his early Jacobean work is markedly influenced by the techniques of
the new, satiric dramatists. One play, Troilus and Cressida, may even have been inspired by the
War of the Theatres.
Shakespeare's final plays hearken back to his Elizabethan comedies in their use of romantic
situation and incident. In these plays, however, the sombre elements that are largely glossed over
in the earlier plays are brought to the fore and often rendered dramatically vivid. This change is
related to the success of tragicomedies such as Philaster, although the uncertainty of dates makes
the nature and direction of the influence unclear. From the evidence of the title-page to The Two
Noble Kinsmen and from textual analysis it is believed by some editors that Shakespeare ended
his career in collaboration with Fletcher, who succeeded him as house playwright for the King's
Men. These last plays resemble Fletcher's tragicomedies in their attempt to find a comedic mode
capable of dramatizing more serious events than had his earlier comedies.
Style
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, "drama became the ideal means to capture and convey the
diverse interests of the time." Stories of various genres were enacted for audiences consisting of
both the wealthy and educated and the poor and illiterate. Shakespeare served his dramatic
apprenticeship at the height of the Elizabethan period, in the years following the defeat of the
Spanish Armada; he retired at the height of the Jacobean period, not long before the start of the
Thirty Years' War. His verse style, his choice of subjects, and his stagecraft all bear the marks of
both periods. His style changed not only in accordance with his own tastes and developing
mastery, but also in accord with the tastes of the audiences for whom he wrote.
While many passages in Shakespeare's plays are written in prose, he almost always wrote a large
proportion of his plays and poems in iambic pentameter. In some of his early works (like Romeo
and Juliet), he even added punctuation at the end of these iambic pentameter lines to make the
rhythm even stronger. He and many dramatists of this period used the form of blank verse
extensively in character dialogue, thus heightening poetic effects.
To end many scenes in his plays he used a rhyming couplet to give a sense of conclusion, or
completion. A typical example is provided in Macbeth: as Macbeth leaves the stage to murder
Duncan (to the sound of a chiming clock), he says
―Hear it not Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell.‖
Shakespeare's writing (especially his plays) also feature extensive wordplay in which double
entendres and clever rhetorical flourishes are repeatedly used. Humor is a key element in all of
Shakespeare's plays. Although a large amount of his comical talent is evident in his comedies,
some of the most entertaining scenes and characters are found in tragedies such as Hamlet and
histories such as Henry IV, Part 1. Shakespeare's humour was largely influenced by Plautus.
Soliloquies in plays
Shakespeare's plays are also notable for their use of soliloquies, in which a character makes a
speech to him- or herself so the audience can understand the character's inner motivations and
conflict.
In his book Shakespeare and the History of Soliloquies, James Hirsh defines the convention of a
Shakespearean soliloquy in early modern drama. He argues that when a person on the stage
speaks to himself or herself, they are characters in a fiction speaking in character; this is an
occasion of self-address. Furthermore, Hirsh points out that Shakespearian soliloquies and
"asides" are audible in the fiction of the play, bound to be overheard by any other character in the
scene unless certain elements confirm that the speech is protected. Therefore, a Renaissance
playgoer who was familiar with this dramatic convention would have been alert to Hamlet's
expectation that his soliloquy be overheard by the other characters in the scene. Moreover, Hirsh
asserts that in soliloquies in other Shakespearian plays, the speaker is entirely in character within
the play's fiction. Saying that addressing the audience was outmoded by the time Shakespeare
was alive, he "acknowledges few occasions when a Shakespearean speech might involve the
audience in recognising the simultaneous reality of the stage and the world the stage is
representing." Other than 29 speeches delivered by choruses or characters who revert to that
condition as epilogues "Hirsh recognises only three instances of audience address in
Shakespeare's plays, 'all in very early comedies, in which audience address is introduced
specifically to ridicule the practice as antiquated and amateurish.'"
Source material of the plays
As was common in the period, Shakespeare based many of his plays on the work of other
playwrights and recycled older stories and historical material. His dependence on earlier sources
was a natural consequence of the speed at which playwrights of his era wrote; in addition, plays
based on already popular stories appear to have been seen as more likely to draw large crowds.
There were also aesthetic reasons: Renaissance aesthetic theory took seriously the dictum that
tragic plots should be grounded in history. This stricture did not apply to comedy, and those of
Shakespeare's plays for which no clear source has been established, such as Love's Labour's Lost
and The Tempest, are comedies. Even these plays, however, rely heavily on generic
commonplaces. For example, Hamlet (c.1601) may be a reworking of an older, lost play (the socalled Ur-Hamlet), and King Lear is likely an adaptation of an older play, King Leir. For plays
on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied heavily on two principal texts. Most of the Roman and
Greek plays are based on Plutarch's Parallel Lives (from the 1579 English translation by Sir
Thomas North, and the English history plays are indebted to Raphael Holinshed's 1587
Chronicles.
While there is much dispute about the exact Chronology of Shakespeare plays, as well as the
Shakespeare Authorship Question, the plays tend to fall into three main stylistic groupings.
The first major grouping of his plays begins with his histories and comedies of the 1590s.
Shakespeare's earliest plays tended to be adaptations of other playwright's works and employed
blank verse and little variation in rhythm. However, after the plague forced Shakespeare and his
company of actors to leave London for periods between 1592 and 1594, Shakespeare began to
use rhymed couplets in his plays, along with more dramatic dialogue. These elements showed up
in The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Almost all of the plays written
after the plague hit London are comedies, perhaps reflecting the public's desire at the time for
light-hearted fare. Other comedies from Shakespeare during this period include Much Ado
About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor and As You Like It.
The middle grouping of Shakespeare's plays begins in 1599 with Julius Caesar. For the next few
years, Shakespeare would produce his most famous dramas, including Macbeth, Hamlet, and
King Lear. The plays during this period are in many ways the darkest of Shakespeare's career
and address issues such as betrayal, murder, lust, power and egoism.
The final grouping of plays, called Shakespeare's late romances, include Pericles, Prince of Tyre,
Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. The romances are so called because they bear
similarities to medieval romance literature. Among the features of these plays are a redemptive
plotline with a happy ending, and magic and other fantastic elements.
Chapter-10
American Drama
Theater of the United States
This article is about stage theater in the United States. For information about the movie industry,
see Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition. Regional or resident theatres in
the United States are professional theatre companies outside of New York City that produce their
own seasons.
Early history
Before the first English colony was established in 1607, there were Spanish dramas and Native
Americans tribes performed theatrical events.
The birth of professional theatre in America may have begun with the Lewis Hallam troupe that
arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1752. A theater was built in Williamsburg in 1716, and, in
January 1736, the original Dock Street Theatre was opened in Charles Town, South Carolina. In
any case, The Hallams were the first to organize a complete company of actors in Europe and
bring them to the colonies. They brought a repertoire of plays popular in London at the time,
including Hamlet, Othello, The Recruiting Officer, and Richard III. The Merchant of Venice was
their first performance, shown initially on September 15, 1752. Encountering opposition from
religious organisations, Hallam and his company left for Jamaica in 1754 or 1755. Soon after,
Lewis Hallam, Jr., founded the American Company, opened a theater in New York, and
presented the first professionally mounted American play—The Prince of Parthia, by Thomas
Godfrey—in 1767.
In the 18th century, laws forbidding the performance of plays were passed in Massachusetts in
1750, in Pennsylvania in 1759, and in Rhode Island in 1761, and plays were banned in most
states during the American Revolutionary War at the urging of the Continental Congress. In
1794, president of Yale College, Timothy Dwight IV, in his "Essay on the Stage", declared that
"to indulge a taste for playgoing means nothing more or less than the loss of that most valuable
treasure: the immortal soul."
In spite of such laws, however, a few writers tried their hand at playwriting. Most likely, the first
plays written in America were by European-born authors—we know of original plays being
written by Spaniard, Frenchmen and Englishmen dating back as early as 1567—although no
plays were printed in America until Robert Hunter's Androboros in 1714. Still, in the early years,
most of the plays produced came from Europe; only with Godfrey's The Prince of Parthia in
1767 do we get a professionally produced play written by an American, although it was a lastminute substitute for Thomas Forrest's comic opera The Disappointment; or, The Force of
Credulity, and although the first play to treat American themes seriously, Ponteach; or, the
Savages of America by Robert Rogers, had been published in London a year earlier. 'Cato', a
play about revolution, was performed for George Washington and his troops at Valley Forge in
the winter of 1777-1778.
The Revolutionary period was a boost for dramatists, for whom the political debates were fertile
ground for both satire, as seen in the works of Mercy Otis Warren and Colonel Robert Munford,
and for plays about heroism, as in the works of Hugh Henry Brackenridge. The post-war period
saw the birth of American social comedy in Royall Tyler's The Contrast, which established a
much-imitated version of the "Yankee" character, here named "Jonathan". But there were no
professional dramatists until William Dunlap, whose work as playwright, translator, manager and
theatre historian has earned him the title of "Father of American Drama"; in addition to
translating the plays of August von Kotzebue and French melodramas, Dunlap wrote plays in a
variety of styles, of which André and The Father; or, American Shandyism are his best.
The 19th century
Pre-war theatre
At 825 Walnut Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the Walnut Street Theatre, or, "The
Walnut." Founded in 1809 by the Circus of Pepin and Breschard, "The Walnut" is the oldest
theater in America. The Walnut's first theatrical production, The Rivals, was staged in 1812. In
attendance were President Thomas Jefferson and the Marquis de Lafayette.
Provincial theaters frequently lacked heat and minimal theatrical property ("props") and scenery.
Apace with the country's westward expansion, some entrepreneurs operated floating theaters on
barges or riverboats that would travel from town to town. A large town could afford a long
"run"—or period of time during which a touring company would stage consecutive multiple
performances—of a production, and in 1841, a single play was shown in New York City for an
unprecedented three weeks.
John Drew, a famous American actor, playing the part of Petruchio from The Taming of the
Shrew.
William Shakespeare's works were commonly performed. American plays of the period were
mostly melodramas, a famous example of which was Uncle Tom's Cabin, adapted by George
Aiken, from the novel of the same name by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
In 1821, William Henry Brown established the African Grove Theatre in New York City. It was
the third attempt to have an African-American theatre, but this was the most successful of them
all. The company put on not only Shakespeare, but also staged the first play written by an
African-American, The Drama of King Shotaway. The theatre was shut down in 1823. AfricanAmerican theatre was relatively dormant, except for the 1858 play The Escape; or, A Leap for
Freedom by William Wells Brown, who was an ex-slave. African-American works would not be
regarded again until the 1920s Harlem Renaissance.
A popular form of theatre during this time was the minstrel show, which featured white (and
sometimes, especially after the Civil War, black) actors dressed in "blackface (painting one's
face, etc. with dark makeup to imitate the coloring of an African or African American)." The
players entertained the audience using comic skits, parodies of popular plays and musicals, and
general buffoonery and slapstick comedy, all with heavy utilization of racial stereotyping and
racist themes.
Throughout the 19th century, theatre culture was associated with hedonism and even violence,
and actors (especially women), were looked upon as little better than prostitutes. Jessie Bond
wrote that by the middle of the 19th century, "The stage was at a low ebb, Elizabethan glories
and Georgian artificialities had alike faded into the past, stilted tragedy and vulgar farce were all
the would-be playgoer had to choose from, and the theatre had become a place of evil repute".
On April 15, 1865, less than a week after the end of the United States Civil War, Abraham
Lincoln, while watching a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., was assassinated by a
nationally popular stage-actor of the period, John Wilkes Booth.
Victorian burlesque, a form of bawdy comic theatre mocking high art and culture, was imported
from England about 1860 and in America became a form of farce in which females in male roles
mocked the politics and culture of the day. Criticized for its sexuality and outspokenness, this
form of entertainment was hounded off the "legitimate stage" and found itself relegated to
saloons and barrooms. The female producers, such as Lydia Thompson were replaced by their
male counterparts, who toned down the politics and played up the sexuality, until the burlesque
shows eventually became little more than pretty girls in skimpy clothing singing songs, while
male comedians told raunchy jokes.
The drama of the pre-war period tended to be a derivative in form, imitating European
melodramas and romantic tragedies, but native in content, appealing to popular nationalism by
dramatizing current events and portraying American heroism. But playwrights were limited by a
set of factors, including the need for plays to be profitable, the middle-brow tastes of American
theatre-goers, and the lack of copyright protection and compensation for playwrights. During this
time, the best strategy for a dramatist was to become an actor and/or a manager, after the model
of John Howard Payne, Dion Boucicault and John Brougham. This period saw the popularity of
certain native character types, especially the "Yankee", the "Negro" and the "Indian",
exemplified by the characters of Jonathan, Sambo and Metamora. Meanwhile, increased
immigration brought a number of plays about the Irish and Germans, which often dovetailed
with concerns over temperance and Roman Catholic. This period also saw plays about American
expansion to the West (including plays about Mormonism) and about women's rights. Among
the best plays of the period are James Nelson Barker's Superstition; or, the Fanatic Father, Anna
Cora Mowatt's Fashion; or, Life in New York, Nathaniel Bannister's Putnam, the Iron Son of '76,
Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana, and Cornelius Mathews's Witchcraft; or,
the Martyrs of Salem. At the same time, America had created new dramatic forms in the Tom
Shows, the showboat theater and the minstrel show.
Post-war theatre
In the postbellum North, theatre flourished as a post-war boom allowed longer and morefrequent productions. The advent of American rail transport allowed production companies, its
actors, and large, elaborate sets to travel easily between towns, which made permanent theaters
in small towns feasible. The invention and practical application of electric lighting also led to
changes to and improvements of scenery styles and the designing of theater interiors and seating
areas.
Minstrel show performers Rollin Howard (in female costume) and George Griffin, c. 1855.
In 1896, Charles Frohman, Al Hayman, Abe Erlanger, Mark Klaw, Samuel F. Flenderson, and
Fred Zimmerman formed the Theatrical Syndicate, which established systemized booking
networks throughout the United States, and created a management monopoly that controlled
every aspect of contracts and bookings until the turn of the 20th century, when the Shubert
brothers founded rival agency, The Shubert Organization.
For playwrights, the period after the War brought more financial reward and aesthetic respect
(including professional criticism) than was available earlier. In terms of form, spectacles,
melodramas and farces remained popular, but poetic drama and romanticism almost died out
completely due to the new emphasis upon realism, which was adopted by serious drama,
melodrama and comedy alike. This realism was not quite the European realism of Ibsen's Ghosts,
but a combination of scenic realism (e.g., the "Belasco Method") with a less romantic view of
life that accompanied the cultural turmoil of the period. The most ambitious effort towards
realism during this period came from James Herne, who was influenced by the ideas of Ibsen,
Hardy and Zola regarding realism, truth, and literary quality; his most important achievement,
Margaret Fleming, enacts the principles he expounded in his essay "Art for Truth's Sake in the
Drama". Although Fleming did not appeal to audiences—critics and audiences felt it dwelt too
much on unseemly topics and included improper scenes, such as Margaret nursing her husband's
bastard child onstage—other forms of dramatic realism were becoming more popular in
melodrama (e.g., Augustin Daly's Under the Gaslight) and in local color plays (Bronson
Howard's Shenandoah). Other key dramatists during this period are David Belasco, Steele
MacKaye, William Dean Howells, Dion Boucicault, and Clyde Fitch.
The 20th century
Theatre
Vaudeville was common in the late 19th and early 20th century, and is notable for heavily
influencing early film, radio, and television productions in the country. (This was born from an
earlier American practice of having singers and novelty acts perform between acts in a standard
play.) George Burns was a very long-lived American comedian who started out in the vaudeville
community, but went on to enjoy a career running until the 1990s.
Some vaudeville theaters built between about 1900 and 1920 managed to survive as well, though
many went through periods of alternate use, most often as movie theaters until the second half of
the century saw many urban populations decline and multiplexes built in the suburbs. Since that
time, a number have been restored to original or nearly-original condition and attract new
audiences nearly one hundred years later.
By the beginning of the 20th century, legitimate 1752 (non-vaudville) theatre had become
decidedly more sophisticated in the United States, as it had in Europe. The stars of this era, such
as Ethel Barrymore and John Drew, were often seen as even more important than the show itself.
The advance of motion pictures also led to many changes in theatre. The popularity of musicals
may have been due in part to the fact the early films had no sound, and could thus not compete,
until The Jazz Singer of 1927, which combined both talking and music in a moving picture.
More complex and sophisticated dramas bloomed in this time period, and acting styles became
more subdued. Even by 1915, actors were being lured away from theatre and to the silver screen,
and vaudeville was beginning to face stiff competition.
While revues consisting of mostly unconnected songs, sketches, comedy routines, and scantilyclad dancing girls dominated for the first 20 years of the 20th century, musical theatre would
eventually develop beyond this. One of the first major steps was Show Boat, with music by
Jerome Kern and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein. It featured songs and non-musical scenes which
were integrated to develop the show's plot. The next great step forward was Oklahoma!, with
lyrics by Hammerstein and music by Richard Rodgers. Its "dream ballets" used dance to carry
forward the plot and develop the characters.
Amateur performing groups have always had a place alongside professional acting companies.
The Amateur Comedy Club, Inc. was founded in New York City on April 18, 1884. It was
organized by seven gentlemen who broke away from the Madison Square Dramatic
Organization, a socially prominent company presided over by Mrs. James Brown Potter and
David Belasco. The ACC staged its first performance on February 13, 1885. It has performed
continuously ever since, making it the oldest, continuously performing theatrical society in the
United States. Prominent New Yorkers who have been members of the ACC include Theodore,
Frederick and John Steinway of the piano manufacturing family; Gordon Grant, the marine artist;
Christopher La Farge, the architect; Van H. Cartmell, the publisher; Albert Sterner, the painter;
and Edward Fales Coward, the theatre critic and playwright. Elsie De Wolfe, Lady Mendl, later
famous as the world's first professional interior decorator, acted in Club productions in the early
years of the 20th Century, as did Hope Williams (whom Katharine Hepburn understudied in
"Holiday" in the 1920s), and Julie Harris in the 1940s. ACC directors have included Charles
Coburn, Herbert Dawley, George Ferencz, Walter Greaza, Josephine Hull, Howard Lindsay,
Gene Lockhart, Priestly Morrison, Ruth Rawson, Maida Reade, Jose Ruben, Janet Hayes Walker
and Monty Wooley, among others.
The massive social change that went on during the Great Depression also had an effect on theatre
in the United States. Plays took on social roles, identifying with immigrants and the unemployed.
The Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal program set up by Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped to
promote theatre and provide jobs for actors. The program staged many elaborate and
controversial plays such as It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis and The Cradle Will Rock by
Marc Blitzstein. By contrast, the legendary producer Brock Pemberton (founder of the Tony
Awards) was among those who felt that it was more than ever a time for comic entertainment, in
order to provide an escape from the prevailing harsh social conditions: typical of his productions
was Lawrence Riley's comedy Personal Appearance (1934), whose success on Broadway (501
performances) vindicated Pemberton.
The years between the World Wars were years of extremes. Eugene O'Neill's plays were the high
point for serious dramatic plays leading up to the outbreak of war in Europe. Beyond the Horizon
(1920), for which he won his first Pulitzer Prize; he later won Pulitzers for Anna Christie (1922)
and Strange Interlude (1928) as well as the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1940 proved to be a pivotal year for African-American theatre. Frederick O'Neal and Abram Hill
founded ANT, or the American Negro Theater, the most renowned African-American theatre
group of the 1940s. Their stage was small and located in the basement of a library in Harlem, and
most of the shows were attended and written by African-Americans. Some shows include
Theodore Browne's Natural Man (1941), Abram Hill's Walk Hard (1944), and Owen Dodson's
Garden of Time (1945). At ANT, many famous actors received their training there, including
Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Alice and Alvin Childress, Osceola Archer, Ruby Dee, Earle
Hyman, Hilda Simms, among many others.
Post World War II theatre
After World War II, American theatre came into its own. Several American playwrights, such as
Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, became world-renowned.
In the 1950s and 1960s, experimentation in the Arts spread into theatre as well, with plays such
as Hair including nudity and drug culture references. Musicals remained popular as well, and
musicals such as West Side Story and A Chorus Line broke previous records. At the same time,
shows like Stephen Sondheim's Company began to deconstruct the musical form as it has been
practiced through the mid-century, moving away from traditional plot and realistic external
settings to explore the central character's inner state; his Follies relied on pastiches of the
Ziegfeld Follies-styled revue; his Pacific Overtures used Japanese kabuki theatrical practices;
and Merrily We Roll Along told its story backwards. Similarly, Bob Fosse's production of
Chicago returned the musical to its vaudeville origins.
In the late 1990s and 2000s, American theatre began to borrow from cinematic and operatic
roots. For instance, Julie Taymor, director of The Lion King directed Die Zauberflöte at the
Metropolitan Opera. Also, Broadway musicals were developed around Disney's Mary Poppins,
Tarzan, The Little Mermaid, and the one that started it all, Beauty and the Beast, which may
have contributed to Times Square's revitalization in the 1990s. Also, Mel Brooks's The Producers
and Young Frankenstein are based on his hit films.
Drama
The early years of the 20th century, before World War I, continued to see realism as the main
development in drama. But starting around 1900, there was a revival of poetic drama in the
States, corresponding to a similar revival in Europe (e.g. Yeats, Maeterlinck and Hauptmann).
The most notable example of this trend was the "Biblical trilogy" of William Vaughn Moody,
which also illustrate the rise of religious-themed drama during the same years, as seen in the
1899 production of Ben-Hur and two 1901 adaptations of Quo Vadis. Moody, however, is best
known for two prose plays, The Great Divide (1906, later adapted into three film versions) and
The Faith Healer (1909), which together point the way to modern American drama in their
emphasis on the emotional conflicts that lie at the heart of contemporary social conflicts. Other
key playwrights from this period (in addition to continued work by Howells and Fitch) include
Edward Sheldon, Charles Rann Kennedy and one of the most successful women playwrights in
American drama, Rachel Crothers, whose interest in women's issues can be seen in such plays as
He and She (1911).
During the period between the World Wars, American drama came to maturity, thanks in large
part to the works of Eugene O'Neill and of the Provincetown Players. O'Neill's experiments with
theatrical form and his combination of Naturalist and Expressionist techniques inspired other
playwrights to use greater freedom in their works, whether expanding the techniques of Realism,
as in Susan Glaspell's Trifles, or borrowing more heavily from German Expressionism (e.g.,
Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine), Other distinct movements during this period include folk-
drama/regionalism (Paul Green's Pulitzer-winning In Abraham's Bosom), "pageant" drama
(Green's The Lost Colony, about the mysterious Roanoke Colony), and even a return to poetic
drama (Maxwell Anderson's Winterset). At the same time, the economic crisis of the Great
Depression led to the growth of protest drama, as seen in the Federal Theatre Project's Living
Newspaper productions and in the works of Clifford Odets (e.g., Waiting for Lefty) and of
moralist drama, as in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes and The Children's Hour. Other key
figures of this era include George S. Kaufman, George Kelly, Langston Hughes, S. N. Behrman,
Sidney Howard, Robert E. Sherwood, and a set of playwrights who followed O'Neill's path of
philosophical searching, Philip Barry, Thornton Wilder (Our Town) and William Saroyan (The
Time of Your Life). Theatre criticism kept pace with the drama, such as in the work of George
Jean Nathan and in the numerous books and journals on American theater that were published
during this time.
The stature that American drama had achieved between the Wars was cemented during the postWorld War II generation, with the final works of O'Neill and his generation being joined by such
towering figures as Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, as well as by the maturation of the
musical theatre form. Other key dramatists include William Inge, Arthur Laurents and Paddy
Chayefsky in the 50s, the avant garde movement of Jack Richardson, Arthur Kopit, Jack Gelber
and Edward Albee the 60s, and the maturation of black drama through Lorraine Hansberry,
James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka. In the musical theatre, important figures include Rodgers and
Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Richard Adler and Jerry
Ross, Frank Loesser, Jule Styne, Jerry Bock, Meredith Willson and Stephen Sondheim.
The period beginning in the mid-1960s, with the passing of Civil Rights legislation and its
repercussions, came the rise of an "agenda" theatre comparable to that of the 1930s. Many of the
major playwrights from the mid-century continued to produce new works, but were joined by
names like Sam Shepard, Neil Simon, Romulus Linney, David Rabe, Lanford Wilson, David
Mamet, and John Guare. Many important dramatists were women, including Beth Henley,
Marsha Norman, Wendy Wasserstein, Megan Terry, Paula Vogel and María Irene Fornés. The
growth of ethnic pride movements led to more success by dramatists from racial minorities, such
as black playwrights Douglas Turner Ward, Adrienne Kennedy, Ed Bullins, Charles Fuller,
Suzan-Lori Parks, Ntozake Shange, George C. Wolfe and August Wilson, who created a
dramatic history of United States with his cycle of plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, one for each
decade of the 20th century. Asian American theatre is represented in the early 70s by Frank Chin
and achieved international success with David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly. Latino theatre grew
from the local activist performances of Luis Valdez's Chicano-focused Teatro Campesino to his
more formal plays, such as Zoot Suit, and later to the award winning work of Cuban Americans
Fornés (multiple Obies) and her student Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer), to Puerto Rican playwrights José
Rivera and Miguel Piñero, and to the Tony Award winning musical about Dominicans in New
York City, In the Heights. Finally, the rise of the gay rights movement and of the AIDS crisis led
to a number of important gay and lesbian dramatists, including Christopher Durang, Holly
Hughes, Karen Malpede, Terrence McNally, Larry Kramer, Tony Kushner, whose Angels in
America won the Tony Award two years in a row, and composer-playwright Jonathan Larson,
whose musical Rent ran for over twelve years.
American theatre today
Earlier styles of theatre such as minstrel shows and Vaudeville acts have disappeared from the
landscape, but theatre remains a popular American art form. Broadway productions still entertain
millions of theatregoers as productions have become more elaborate and expensive. At the same
time, theatre has also served as a platform for expression, and a venue for identity exploration for
under-represented, minority communities, who have formed their own companies and created
their own genres of works, notably East West Players, founded in 1965 as the first Asian
American theatre group. Notable contemporary American playwrights include Edward Albee,
August Wilson, Tony Kushner, David Henry Hwang, John Guare, and Wendy Wasserstein.
Smaller urban theaters have stayed a source of innovation, and regional theaters remain an
important part of theatre life. Drama is also taught in high schools and colleges, which was not
done in previous eras, and many become interested in theatre through this.
The Faster Times, an online newspaper that began in 2009, features a weekly column that
discusses issues and trends in American theatre.
Chapter-12
Othello - William Shakespear
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to
have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story Un Capitano Moro
("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. The work
revolves around four central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army; his
new wife, Desdemona; his lieutenant, Cassio; and his trusted ensign, Iago. Because of its varied
and current themes of racism, love, jealousy and betrayal, Othello is still often performed in
professional and community theatres alike and has been the basis for numerous operatic, film
and literary adaptations
Plot
The play opens with Roderigo, a rich and dissolute gentleman, complaining to Iago, an ensign,
that Iago has not told him about the secret marriage between Desdemona, the daughter of a
Senator named Brabantio, and Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army. He is upset by
this development because he loves Desdemona and had previously asked her father for her hand
in marriage. Iago hates Othello for promoting a younger man named Michael Cassio above him,
and tells Roderigo that he plans to use Othello for his own advantage. Iago is also angry because
he believes, or at least gives the pretence of belief, that Othello slept with his wife Emilia. Iago
denounces Cassio as a scholarly tactician with no real battle experience; in contrast, Iago is a
battle-tested soldier. By emphasizing Roderigo's failed bid for Desdemona, and his own
dissatisfaction with serving under Othello, Iago convinces Roderigo to wake Brabantio,
Desdemona's father, and tell him about his daughter's elopement. Iago sneaks away to find
Othello and warns him that Brabantio is coming for him.
Before Brabantio reaches Othello, news arrives in Venice that the Turks are going to attack
Cyprus; therefore Othello is summoned to advise the senators. Brabantio arrives and accuses
Othello of seducing Desdemona by witchcraft, but Othello defends himself successfully before
an assembly that includes the Duke of Venice, Brabantio's kinsmen Lodovico and Gratiano, and
various senators. He explains that Desdemona became enamored of him for the sad and
compelling stories he told of his life before Venice, not because of any witchcraft. The senate is
satisfied, but Brabantio leaves saying that Desdemona will betray Othello. By order of the Duke,
Othello leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against invading Turks on the island of
Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife, his new lieutenant Cassio, his ensign Iago, and Iago's
wife, Emilia as Desdemona's attendant.
The party arrives in Cyprus to find that a storm has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Othello orders a
general celebration and leaves to spend private time with Desdemona. In his absence, Iago
schemes to get Cassio drunk after Cassio's own admission that he cannot hold his wine. He then
persuades Roderigo to draw Cassio into a fight. The resulting brawl alarms the citizenry, and
Othello is forced to quell the disturbance. Othello blames Cassio for the disturbance and strips
him of his rank. Cassio is distraught, but, as part of his plan to convince Othello that Cassio and
Desdemona are having an affair, Iago persuades Cassio to importune Desdemona to act as an
intermediary between himself and Othello, in order to convince her husband to reinstate him.
Iago now persuades Othello to be suspicious of Cassio and Desdemona. Othello drops a
handkerchief (Desdemona was trying to bind his headache with) that was Othello's first gift to
Desdemona and which he has stated holds great significance to him in the context of their
relationship. Despite the supposed importance of the handkerchief neither seem to notice the
handkerchief had been dropped. Emilia finds it, and gives it to Iago, at his request, but she is
unaware of what he plans to do with the handkerchief. Iago plants it in Cassio's lodgings as
evidence of Cassio and Desdemona's affair. After he has planted the handkerchief, Iago tells
Othello to stand apart and watch Cassio's reactions while Iago questions him about the
handkerchief. Iago goads Cassio on to talk about his affair with Bianca, a local courtesan with
whom Cassio has been spending time, but speaks her name so quietly that Othello believes the
two other men are talking about Desdemona when Cassio is really speaking of Bianca. Bianca,
on discovering the handkerchief, chastises Cassio, accusing him of giving her a second-hand gift
which he received from another lover. Othello sees this, and Iago convinces him that Cassio
received the handkerchief from Desdemona. Enraged and hurt, Othello resolves to kill his wife
and asks Iago to kill Cassio. Othello proceeds to make Desdemona's life miserable, hitting her in
front of visiting Venetian nobles.
Roderigo complains that he has received nothing from Iago in return for his money and efforts to
win Desdemona, but Iago convinces him to kill Cassio. Roderigo attacks Cassio in the street
after Cassio leaves Bianca's lodgings. They fight, and Cassio mortally wounds Roderigo. During
the scuffle, Iago comes from behind Cassio and badly cuts his leg. In the darkness, Iago manages
to hide his identity, and when passers-by hear Cassio's cries for help, Iago joins them, pretending
to help Cassio. When Cassio identifies Roderigo as one of his attackers, Iago quietly stabs
Roderigo to stop him from revealing the plot. He then accuses Bianca of the failed conspiracy to
kill Cassio.
In the night, Othello confronts Desdemona, and then smothers her to death in their bed. When
Emilia arrives, Othello tries to justify his actions by accusing Desdemona of adultery. Emilia
calls for help. The Governor arrives, with Iago, Cassio, and others, and Emilia begins to explain
the situation. When Othello mentions the handkerchief as proof, Emilia realizes what Iago has
done, and she exposes him, whereupon Iago kills her. Othello, belatedly realizing Desdemona's
innocence, stabs Iago but not fatally, saying that he would rather have Iago live the rest of his life
in pain. For his part, Iago refuses to explain his motives, vowing to remain silent from that
moment on. Lodovico, a Venetian nobleman, apprehends both Iago and Othello for the murders,
but Othello commits suicide with a dagger he had hidden. Lodovico then declares Gratiano
Othello's successor and exhorts Cassio to have Iago justly punished.
Cinthio source
Othello is an adaptation of the Italian writer Cinthio's tale "Un Capitano Moro" ("A Moorish
Captain") from his Gli Hecatommithi (1565), a collection of one hundred tales in the style of
Boccaccio's Decameron. No English translation of Cinthio was available in Shakespeare's
lifetime, and verbal echoes in Othello are closer to the Italian original than to Gabriel Chappuy's
1584 French translation. Cinthio's tale may have been based on an actual incident occurring in
Venice about 1508. It also resembles an incident described in the earlier tale of "The Three
Apples", one of the stories narrated in the One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights).
Desdemona is the only named character in Cinthio's tale, with his few other characters identified
only as the "Moor", the "Squadron Leader", the "Ensign", and the "Ensign's Wife"
(corresponding to the play's Othello, Cassio, Iago and Emilia). Cinthio drew a moral (which he
placed in the mouth of Desdemona) that European women are unwise to marry the
temperamental males of other nations.
Cinthio's "Moor" is the model for Shakespeare's Othello, but some researchers believe the poet
also took inspiration from the several Moorish delegations from Morocco to Elizabethan England
circa 1600. While Shakespeare closely followed Cinthio's tale in composing Othello, he departed
from it in some details. Brabantio, Roderigo, and several minor characters are not found in
Cinthio, for example, and Shakespeare's Emilia takes part in the handkerchief mischief while her
counterpart in Cinthio does not. Unlike in Othello, in Cinthio, the "Ensign" (the play's Iago) lusts
after Desdemona and is spurred to revenge when she rejects him. Shakespeare's opening scenes
are unique to his tragedy as is the tender scene between Emilia and Desdemona as the lady
prepares for bed. Shakespeare's most striking departure from Cinthio is the manner of his
heroine's death. In Shakespeare, Othello suffocates Desdemona, but in Cinthio, the "Moor"
commissions the "Ensign" to bludgeon his wife to death with a sand-filled stocking. Cinthio
describes each gruesome blow, and, when the lady is dead, the "Ensign" and the "Moor" place
her lifeless body upon her bed, smash her skull, and cause the cracked ceiling above the bed to
collapse upon her, giving the impression its falling rafters caused her death. In Cinthio, the two
murderers escape detection. The "Moor" then misses Desdemona greatly, and comes to loathe
the sight of the "Ensign". He demotes him, and refuses to have him in his company. The
"Ensign" then seeks revenge by disclosing to the "Squadron Leader" the "Moor's" involvement in
Desdemona's death. The two depart Cyprus for Venice, and denounce the "Moor" to the
Venetian Seignory; he is arrested, taken to Venice, and tortured. He refuses to admit his guilt and
is condemned to exile. Desdemona's relatives eventually find and kill him. The "Ensign",
however, continues to escape detection in Desdemona's death, but engages in other crimes while
in Venice. He is arrested and dies after being tortured. Cinthio's "Ensign's Wife" (the play's
Emilia), survives her husband's death to tell her story.
Cinthio's tale has been described as a "partly racist warning" about the dangers of miscegenation.
While supplying the source of the plot, the book offered nothing of the sense of place of Venice
or Cyprus. For knowledge of this Shakespeare would have used Gasparo Contarini's The
Commonwealth and Government of Venice, in Lewes Lewkenor's 1599 translation.
Date and context
The earliest mention of the play is found in a 1604 Revels Office account, which records that on
"Hallamas Day, being the first of Nouembar ... the Kings Maiesties plaiers" performed "A Play
in the Banketinghouse at Whit Hall Called The Moor of Venis." The work is attributed to
"Shaxberd." The Revels account was first printed by Peter Cunningham in 1842, and, while its
authenticity was once challenged, is now regarded as genuine (as authenticated by A.E. Stamp in
1930). Based on its style, the play is usually dated 1603 or 1604, but arguments have been made
for dates as early as 1601 or 1602.
The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 6 October 1621, by
Thomas Walkley, and was first published in quarto format by him in 1622:
"Tragœdy of Othello, The Moore of Venice. As it hath beene diuerse times acted at the Globe,
and at the Black-Friers, by his Maiesties Seruants. Written by William Shakespeare. London.
Printed by N. O. [Nicholas Okes] for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his shop, at the
Eagle and Child, in Brittans Bursse, 1622."
One year later, the play was included among the plays in the First Folio of Shakespeare's
collected plays. However, the version in the Folio is rather different in length, and in wording: as
the editors of the Folger edition explain: "The Folio play has about 160 lines that do not appear
in the Quarto. Some of these cluster together in quite extensive passages. The Folio also lacks a
scattering of about a dozen lines or part-lines that are to be found in the Quarto. These two
versions also differ from each other in their readings of numerous words. Scholars differ in their
explanation of these differences, and no consensus has emerged. One explanation is that the
Quarto may have been cut in the printing house to meet a fixed number of pages. Another is that
the Quarto is based on an early version of the play, while the Folio represents Shakespeare's
revised version. Most modern editions are based on the longer Folio version, but often
incorporate Quarto readings of words when the Folio text appears to be in error. Quartos were
also published in 1630, 1655, 1681, 1695, 1699 and 1705.
Race
Portrait of Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador to Queen
Elizabeth I in 1600, sometimes suggested as the inspiration for Othello.
There is no consensus over Othello's race. E.A.J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden
Shakespeare edition, concluded that Othello's race is ambiguous. "Renaissance representations of
the Moor were vague, varied, inconsistent, and contradictory. As critics have established, the
term 'Moor' referred to dark-skinned people in general, used interchangeably with similarly
ambiguous terms as 'African', 'Ethiopian', 'Negro', and even 'Indian' to designate a figure from
Africa (or beyond)." Various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") are
insufficient evidence for any accurate racial classification, Honigmann argues, since 'black' could
simply mean 'swarthy' to Elizabethans. Iago twice uses the word 'Barbary' or 'Barbarian' to refer
to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "tawny" Moors. Roderigo
calls Othello 'the thicklips', which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan
African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, as these comments are all intended as
insults by the characters, they need not be taken literally.
Michael Neill, editor of the Oxford Shakespeare edition, notes that the earliest critical references
to Othello's colour, (Thomas Rymer's 1693 critique of the play, and the 1709 engraving in
Nicholas Rowe's edition of Shakespeare), assume him to be Sub-Saharan, while the earliest
known North African interpretation was not until Edmund Kean's production of 1814.
Honigmann discusses the view that Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun,
Moorish ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, was one
inspiration for Othello. He stayed with his retinue in London for several months and occasioned
much discussion. While Shakespeare's play was written only a few years afterwards Honigman
questions the view that ben Messaoud himself was a significant influence on it.
Artist William Mulready portrays African-American actor Ira Aldridge as Othello. The Walters
Art Museum.
Othello is referred to as a ―Barbary horse‖ (1.1.113) and a ―lascivious Moor‖ (1.1.127). In III.III
he denounces Desdemona's supposed sin as being "black as mine own face." Desdemona's
physical whiteness is otherwise presented in opposition to Othello's dark skin; V.II "that whiter
skin of hers than snow." Iago tells Brabantio that "an old black ram / is tupping your white ewe"
(1.1.88). In Elizabethan discourse, the word "black" could suggest various concepts that
extended beyond the physical colour of skin, including a wide range of negative connotations.
Othello was frequently performed as an Arab Moor during the 19th century. He was first played
by a black man on the London stage in 1833, by Ira Aldridge. However, the first major screen
production casting a black actor as Othello would not come until 1995 with Laurence Fishburne
opposite Kenneth Branagh's Iago. In the past, Othello would often have been portrayed by a
white actor in blackface or in a black mask; more recent actors who chose to ‗blacken up‘
include Ralph Richardson (1937), John Gielgud (1961), Laurence Olivier (1964), Anthony
Hopkins (1981) and Orson Welles. Ground-breaking black American actor Paul Robeson played
the role in three different productions between 1930 and 1959. The casting of the role comes
with a political subtext. Patrick Stewart played the role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's
1997 staging of the play and Thomas Thieme, also white, played Othello in a 2007 Munich
Kammerspiele staging at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford. Michael Gambon also took
the role in 1980 and 1991; their performances were critically acclaimed. Carlo Rota, of
Mediterranean (British Italian) heritage, played the character on Canadian television in 2008.
Themes
Iago / Othello
Although eponymously titled, suggesting that the tragedy belongs primarily to Othello, Iago
plays an important role in the plot. He reflects the archetypal villain, and has the biggest share of
the dialogue. In Othello, it is Iago who manipulates all other characters at will, controlling their
movements and trapping them in an intricate net of lies. He achieves this by getting close to all
characters and playing on their weaknesses while they refer to him as "honest" Iago, thus
furthering his control over the characters . A. C. Bradley, and more recently Harold Bloom, have
been major advocates of this interpretation.[29] Other critics, most notably in the later twentieth
century (after F. R. Leavis), have focused on Othello.
Othering
As the Protestant Reformation of England highlighted the importance of pious, controlled
behaviour in society, it was the tendency of the contemporary Englishman to displace society's
undesirable qualities of barbarism, treachery, jealousy and libidinousness onto those who are
considered 'other'. The assumed characteristics of black men, or 'the other', were both instigated
and popularised by Renaissance dramas of the time; for example, the treachery of black men
inherent to George Peele's 'The Battle of Alcazar' (1588).
Religious / Philosophical
Many critics have noted references to demonic possession throughout the play, especially in
relation to Othello's seizure, a phenomenon often associated with possession in the popular
consciousness of the day. Another scholar suggests that the epileptic fit relates to the mind-body
problem and the existence of the soul.
The Hero
There have been many differing views on the character of Othello over the years. A.C Bradley
calls Othello the "most romantic of all of Shakespeare's heroes" (by "hero" Bradley means
protagonist) and "the greatest poet of them all". On the other hand, F.R. Leavis describes Othello
as "egotistical". There are those who also take a less critical approach to the character of Othello
such as William Hazlitt saying that "the nature of the Moor is noble... but his blood is of the most
inflammable kind".
Performance history
Poster for an 1884 American production starring Thomas. W. Keene.
Pre-20th century
Othello possesses an unusually detailed performance record. The first certainly known
performance occurred on 1 November 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London, being mentioned in
a Revels account on "Hallamas Day, being the first of Nouembar", 1604, when "the Kings
Maiesties plaiers" performed "A Play in the Banketinge house at Whit Hall Called The Moor of
Venis." The play is there attributed to "Shaxberd". Subsequent performances took place on
Monday, 30 April 1610 at the Globe Theatre, and at Oxford in September 1610. On 22
November 1629, and on 6 May 1635, it played at the Blackfriars Theatre. Othello was also one
of the twenty plays performed by the King's Men during the winter of 1612, in celebration of the
wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.
At the start of the Restoration era, on 11 October 1660, Samuel Pepys saw the play at the
Cockpit Theatre. Nicholas Burt played the lead, with Charles Hart as Cassio; Walter Clun won
fame for his Iago. Soon after, on 8 December 1660, Thomas Killigrew's new King's Company
acted the play at their Vere Street theatre, with Margaret Hughes as Desdemona – probably the
first time a professional actress appeared on a public stage in England.
It may be one index of the play's power that Othello was one of the very few Shakespearean
plays that was never adapted and changed during the Restoration and the eighteenth century.
As Shakespeare regained popularity among nineteenth-century French Romantics, poet,
playwright, and novelist Alfred de Vigny created a French translation of Othello, titled Le More
de Venise, which premiered at the Comédie-Française on 24 October 1829.
Famous nineteenth century Othellos included Edmund Kean, Edwin Forrest, Ira Aldridge, and
Tommaso Salvini, and outstanding Iagos were Edwin Booth and Henry Irving.
20th century
The most notable American production may be Margaret Webster's 1943 staging starring Paul
Robeson as Othello and Jose Ferrer as Iago. This production was the first ever in America to
feature a black actor playing Othello with an otherwise all-white cast (there had been all-black
productions of the play before). It ran for 296 performances, almost twice as long as any other
Shakespearean play ever produced on Broadway. Although it was never filmed, it was the first
lengthy performance of a Shakespeare play released on records, appearing first on a multi-record
78 RPM set and then on a 3-LP one. Robeson had first played the role in London in 1931
opposite a cast that included Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona and Ralph Richardson as Roderigo,
and would return to it in 1959 at Stratford on Avon with co-stars Mary Ure, Sam Wanamaker
and Vanessa Redgrave. The critics had mixed reactions to the "flashy" 1959 production which
included mid western accents and rock-and roll drumbeats but gave Robeson primarily good
reviews. W. A. Darlington of The Daily Telegraph ranked Robeson's Othello as the best he'd
ever seen while the Daily Express, which had for years prior published consistently scathing
articles about him for his leftist views, praised his "strong and stately" performance (though in
turn suggested it was a "triumph of presence not acting").
Actors have alternated the roles of Iago and Othello in productions to stir audience interest since
the nineteenth century. Two of the most notable examples of this role swap were William
Charles Macready and Samuel Phelps at Drury Lane (1837) and Richard Burton and John
Neville at the Old Vic Theatre (1955). When Edwin Booth's tour of England in 1880 was not
well attended, Henry Irving invited Booth to alternate the roles of Othello and Iago with him in
London. The stunt renewed interest in Booth's tour. James O'Neill also alternated the roles of
Othello and Iago with Booth.
The American actor William Marshall performed the title role in at least six productions. His
Othello was called by Harold Hobson of the London Sunday Times "the best Othello of our
time," continuing: "...nobler than Tearle, more martial than Gielgud, more poetic than Valk.
From his first entry, slender and magnificently tall, framed in a high Byzantine arch, clad in
white samite, mystic, wonderful, a figure of Arabian romance and grace, to his last plunging of
the knife into his stomach, Mr Marshall rode without faltering the play's enormous rhetoric, and
at the end the house rose to him." Marshall also played Othello in a jazz musical version, Catch
My Soul, with Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago, in Los Angeles in 1968.[43] His Othello was captured on
record in 1964 with Jay Robinson as Iago and on video in 1981 with Ron Moody as Iago. The
1982 Broadway staging starred James Earl Jones as Othello and Christopher Plummer as Iago,
who became the only actor to receive a Tony Award nomination for a performance in the play.
The 1943 run of Othello, starring Paul Robeson and Uta Hagen, holds the record for the most
performances of any Shakespeare play ever produced on Broadway.
When Laurence Olivier gave his acclaimed performance of Othello at the Royal National
Theatre in 1964, he had developed a case of stage fright that was so profound that when he was
alone onstage, Frank Finlay (who was playing Iago) would have to stand offstage where Olivier
could see him to settle his nerves. This performance was recorded complete on LP, and filmed by
popular demand in 1965 (according to a biography of Olivier, tickets for the stage production
were notoriously hard to get). The film version still holds the record for the most Oscar
nominations for acting ever given to a Shakespeare film – Olivier, Finlay, Maggie Smith (as
Desdemona) and Joyce Redman (as Emilia, Iago's wife) were all nominated for Academy
Awards. Olivier was among the last white actors to be greatly acclaimed as Othello, although the
role continued to be played by such performers as Donald Sinden at the Royal Shakespeare
Company in 1979-1980, Paul Scofield at the Royal National Theatre in 1980, Anthony Hopkins
in the BBC Shakespeare television production on videotape. (1981), and Michael Gambon in a
stage production at Scarborough directed by Alan Ayckbourn in 1990. Gambon had been in
Olivier's earlier production. In an interview Gambon commented "I wasn't even the second
gentleman in that. I didn't have any lines at all. I was at the back like that, standing for an hour.
[It's] what I used to do – I had a metal helmet, I had an earplug, and we used to listen to The
Archers. No one knew. All the line used to listen to The Archers. And then I went and played
Othello myself at Birmingham Rep I was 27. Olivier sent me a telegram on the first night. He
said, "Copy me." He said, "Do what I used to do." Olivier used to lower his voice for Othello so I
did mine. He used to paint the big negro lips on. You couldn't do it today, you'd get shot. He had
the complete negro face. And the hips. I did all that. I copied him exactly. Except I had a pony
tail. I played him as an Arab. I stuck a pony tail on with a bell on the end of it. I thought that
would be nice. Every time I moved my hair went wild." British blacking-up for Othello ended
with Gambon in 1990, however the Royal Shakespeare Company didn't run the play at all on the
main Stratford stage until 1999, when Ray Fearon became the first black British actor to take the
part, the first black man to play Othello with the RSC since Robeson.
In 1997, Patrick Stewart took the role of Othello with the Shakespeare Theatre Company
(Washington, D.C.) in a race-bending performance, in a "photo negative" production of a white
Othello with an otherwise all-black cast. Stewart had wanted to play the title role since the age of
14, so he and director Jude Kelly inverted the play so Othello became a comment on a white man
entering a black society. The interpretation of the role is broadening, with theatre companies
casting Othello as a woman or inverting the gender of the whole cast to explore gender questions
in Shakespeare's text. Companies also have chosen to share the role between several actors
during a performance.
Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald's 1988 award-winning play Goodnight Desdemona
(Good Morning Juliet) is a revision of Othello and Romeo and Juliet in which an academic
deciphers a cryptic manuscript she believes to be the original source for the tragedies, and is
transported into the plays themselves.
21st century
Othello opened at the Donmar Warehouse in London on 4 December 2007, directed by Michael
Grandage, with Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello, Ewan McGregor as Iago, Tom Hiddleston as
Cassio, and Kelly Reilly as Desdemona. Despite tickets selling as high as £2000 on web-based
vendors, McGregor and Reilly's performances received largely negative notices. Ejiofor and
Hiddleston both received nominations for Laurence Olivier Awards, with Ejiofor winning but
Hiddleston being beaten by himself, also nominated in the same category for a different play.
Stand up comedian Lenny Henry was the latest big name to play Othello. He did so on a tour at
the start of 2009 produced by Northern Broadsides in collaboration with West Yorkshire
Playhouse.
Contents
1. Aristotle, Poetics.
2. Buckham, Philip Wentworth, Theatre of the Greeks, 1827.
3. Marteinson, Peter (2006). On the Problem of the Comic: A Philosophical Study on
the Origins of Laughter. Legas Press, Ottawa, 2006.
4. Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur Wallace
5. Raskin, Victor, The Semantic Mechanisms of Humor, 1985.
6. Riu, Xavier, Dionysism and Comedy, 1999.
7. Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, Tragedy and Athenian Religion, Oxford University
Press, 2003.
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